Walter Loeber Landau, a partner for many years in the New York City office of Sullivan & Cromwell and the first recipient of ALI’s John Minor Wisdom Award for outstanding member contributions, died at his home on September 1. He was 82.
Mr. Landau, an ALI member for 38 years, received the Institute’s first John Minor Wisdom Award in 1993, chiefly for his extraordinary contribution to the ALI’s then-recently completed Principles of Corporate Governance, and for his work as an Adviser for the Restatement Third, The Law Governing Lawyers. He had served as chair of the ABA’s CORPRO committee, which acted as a liaison between the Corporate Governance project and the ABA’s Section of Business Law. On presenting the award, ALI’s then-President Roswell B. Perkins, Jr., commended Mr. Landau’s scholarly and constructive memoranda to Reporters, his effective and statesmanlike leadership of the committee, and his ability to bridge divergent points of view to build an influential, centrist viewpoint. Without Mr. Landau, Mr. Perkins said, “the Corporate Governance project could easily have been derailed.”
Born in New Orleans in 1931, Mr. Landau graduated Phi Beta Kappa and as class valedictorian from Princeton University in 1953. In 1956, he graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was the Developments Editor of the Law Review. After serving in the Office of the General Counsel of the Air Force, he joined Sullivan & Cromwell in 1959 and became a partner in 1966. He spent his entire career with the firm, where he was an effective corporate and securities lawyer, and served on its managing committee. An active member of the ABA’s Section of Business Law, he was chair of its Committee on Counsel Responsibility and Liability from 1981 to 1984 and a member of its Council from 1984 to 1988. After serving as co-chair of the CORPRO committee from 1988 to 1989, he was sole chair from 1989 until the committee completed its work in 1993.
Mr. Landau served on several corporate boards but also made time to serve on the boards of many nonprofit organizations. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Barbara Gordon Landau, three children, and four grandchildren.