Philip B. Kurland (October 22, 1921 – April 16, 1996) was an American legal scholar.
Kurland was a Brooklyn native, born on October 22, 1921.[1] He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942, and attended Harvard Law School. Kurland served as editor of the Harvard Law Review in 1944.[1] He became a law clerk for Jerome Frank, and then served Justice Felix Frankfurter in the same role from 1945 to 1946.[2] Kurland worked for the United States Department of Justice, and began his legal practice in New York City before starting his teaching career at Indiana University.[2] Kurland was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1949.[3] The next year, he joined the Northwestern University faculty.[4] He left Northwestern for the University of Chicago Law School in 1953. Shortly after Kurland began teaching at Chicago, the law school's dean Edward H. Levi called him, which resulted in a lifelong friendship.[5] Kurland was promoted to full professor in 1956, and appointed to the William R. Kenan Jr. Professorship in 1973, followed by designation as a distinguished service professor in 1977.[6] He founded the Supreme Court Review in 1960,[6] serving as the journal's editor until 1988.[2] Kurland died at Bernard Mitchell Hospital on April 16, 1996, aged 74, while seeking treatment for pneumonia.[1][2][6]