Warren Olney Jr. (October 15, 1870 – March 25, 1939) was an American lawyer who served as an associate justice of the

Supreme Court of California The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...

from March 1, 1919, to July 1921.

Early life and education

Olney was the second of six children born to Mary Jane Craven (January 30, 1842 – 1928) and Warren Olney Sr. (March 11, 1841 – June 2, 1921), an attorney in San Francisco. Olney Sr. co-founded the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, w ...

in his law office with naturalist

John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist ...

, and others, but was later expelled from the organization because he supported the flooding of

Hetch Hetchy Hetch Hetchy is a valley, a reservoir, and a water system in California in the United States. The glacial Hetch Hetchy Valley lies in the northwestern part of Yosemite National Park and is drained by the Tuolumne River. For thousands of years bef ...

Valley to supply water to San Francisco. Olney Sr. was

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well as ...

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

from 1903 to 1905. Olney Jr. was educated in the public schools in Oakland. History of the Bench and Bar of California
Bates, Joseph Clement, ed. Bench and Bar Publishing Company, 1912. pg 453. In 1891, he was graduated with an

A.B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four ye ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where he played on the football team. He then studied at Harvard for a postgraduate year, receiving an A.B. in 1892, and returned to San Francisco."Two 'Square' Railroad Lawyers"
The California Outlook. Vol 12. March 30, 1912. p. 16. Retrieved June 29, 2017. In 1894, Olney received his

LL.B. Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

degree from the

University of California, Hastings College of Law The University of California, Hastings College of the Law (UC Hastings) is a public law school in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1878 by Serranus Clinton Hastings, UC Hastings was the first law school of the University of Californi ...

, and was admitted to the bar.Justice Warren Olney Jr.
Supreme Court of California Resources, Robert Crown Law Library, Stanford Law School. Retrieved June 29, 2017.

Legal and judicial career

Olney entered into practice with his father in Olney & Olney, and then Olney, Pringle & Mannon. He also from 1895 to 1904 taught law classes at Hastings and when Berkeley opened its law school he lectured on evidence there from 1904 to 1907. In 1907, he joined the firm of Page, McCutchen, Knight and Olney, later known as McCutchen, Olney, and Willard (1913-1919). His clients included

Western Pacific Railroad The Western Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was formed in 1903 as an attempt to break the near-monopoly the Southern Pacific Railroad had on rail service into northern California. WP's Feather River Route dir ...

. From 1911 to 1919, he was counsel for the regents of the University of California. Beginning July 1, 1932, he served as president of the alumni association for two years, and thus sat as a regent. Olney was appointed Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court by Governor William Stephens, and served from March 1919 to July 1921. In November 1920, he was re-elected but left the court after a time to resume private practice with McCutchen, Olney, Mannon, and Greene (1921-1939)(later known as McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen and then

Bingham McCutchen Bingham McCutchen LLP was a global law firm with approximately 850 attorneys in nine US offices and five international offices. It ceased operations in late 2014, when several hundred of its partners and associate lawyers left the firm to join Phi ...

, until its collapse in 2014). In 1930 to 1932, he was a special assistant to the

Attorney General of the United States The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...

in antitrust litigation concerning the

Radio Corporation of America The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westin ...

Bar and civic activities

In 1917, Olney had charge of registration in California for the draft for World War I. He served the

Bar Association of San Francisco The Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF) was established in 1872 as a nonprofit legal membership organization that provides San Francisco legal professionals with networking, educational and pro bono opportunities in order to better serve the c ...

as president from 1926 to 1927, as his father had from 1901 to 1902. From 1935 to 1937, he was a member of the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point ...

's advisory committee on

rules of civil procedure Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits (as opposed to procedures in criminal law matters). These rules govern how a lawsuit or case may be commenced; what kin ...

for

U.S. District Courts The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

Personal life

In 1899 he married Mary M. McLean (July 25, 1873 – August 12, 1965) of Alameda, California, who graduated from the University of California and taught at

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it beca ...

. They had two sons and a daughter: John McLean Olney, Warren Olney III, and Constance S. Olney. The youngest son, Warren Olney III (February 25, 1904 – December 23, 1978), became an attorney and practiced in his father's law firm. He was appointed by President

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

as an Assistant Attorney General to oversee the

Criminal Division In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

of the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and a ...

. From 1956 to 1966, Warren III was Director of the

Administrative Office of the United States Courts The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) is the administrative agency of the United States federal court system, established in 1939. The central support entity for the federal judicial branch, the AO provides a wide range of ...

. He was appointed by Chief Justice

Earl Warren Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. The Warren Court presided over a major shift in American constitutio ...

, whom Warren III had served under in the

California Attorney General The attorney general of California is the state attorney general of the Government of California. The officer's duty is to ensure that "the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" (Constitution of California, Article V, Sectio ...

's Office. His son,

Warren Olney IV Warren Olney IV is an American broadcast journalist. He was the host and executive producer of the nationally syndicated Public Radio International weekday afternoon program '' To the Point'', which originated at Santa Monica, California public ra ...

, is a broadcast journalist in Los Angeles.

References

External links

Portraits and photographs from the Olney family papers
Online Archive of California. Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley.
Warren Olney, Jr.
California Supreme Court Historical Society.
In Memoriam: Warren Olney, Jr.
13 Cal. Rpts. 2d 767-778 (1939). California Supreme Court Historical Society.

California State Courts. Retrieved July 19, 2017.