Career
In 1937, Ruebhausen joined the law firm Debevoise, Stevenson, Plimpton & Page, a precursor to the modern firm of Debevoise & Plimpton.
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP is an international law firm based in New York City. Founded in 1931 by Harvard Law School alumnus Eli Whitney Debevoise and Oxford-trained William Stevenson, Debevoise specializes in strategic and private equity, M&A, insurance and financial services transactions, private funds, complex litigation, investigations and international arbitration.
Ruebhausen was exempted from military service during World War II for health reasons, but in 1941 he moved to Washington, D.C. to work for the Lend-Lease Administration financing material aid for the Allied war effort in Europe. In 1944, he became general counsel to the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), headed by the engineer Vannevar Bush. That year, at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ruebhausen helped Bush draft a letter on how scientific research could be useful to the United States in peacetime. The letter became the blueprint for the establishment of the National Science Foundation in 1950.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington or D.C., is the capital of the United States. Founded after the American Revolution as the seat of government of the newly independent country, Washington was named after George Washington, the first President of the United States and a Founding Father. As the seat of the United States federal government and several international organizations, Washington is an important world political capital. The city is also one of the most visited cities in the world, with more than 20 million tourists annually.
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. It comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia.
After the war, Ruebhausen returned to practice at Debevoise & Plimpton, where he remained until his retirement in 1987. From 1950 to 1951, he also served as counsel to the International Development Advisory Board, where he began a lifelong relationship with Nelson A. Rockefeller, the organization's chairman, as a friend and political adviser. When Rockefeller became Governor of New York, Ruebhausen served him in a number of capacities, including as chairman of a Task Force on Protection from Radioactive Fallout, as Special Adviser on Atomic Energy, and as chairman of a panel on Insurance Holding Companies.
Ruebhausen also maintained a long relationship with the New York City Bar Association, where he served as president from 1980 to 1982. In keeping with his professional interest in science, he served as chair of the Association's Special Committee on Atomic Energy from 1949 to 1959 and as chair of the Committee on Science and the Law from 1959 to 1967.
The New York City Bar Association, founded in 1870, is a voluntary association of lawyers and law students. Since 1896, the organization, formally known as the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, has been headquartered in a landmark building on 44th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan. Today the City Bar has more than 24,000 members. Its current president, Roger Juan Maldonado, began his two-year term in May 2018.
Prescott Sheldon Bush was an American banker and politician. After working as a Wall Street executive investment banker, he represented Connecticut in the United States Senate from 1952 to 1963. A member of the Bush family, he was the father of President George H. W. Bush, who was also the Vice President prior to his presidency, and the paternal grandfather of President George W. Bush and Governor Jeb Bush.
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), founded in 1921, is a United States nonprofit think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. It is headquartered in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. Its membership, which numbers 4,900, has included senior politicians, more than a dozen secretaries of state, CIA directors, bankers, lawyers, professors, and senior media figures.
Joseph Richardson Dilworth was a leading businessman best known for being a lawyer for the Rockefeller family.
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, commonly known as Davis Polk, is an international law firm headquartered in New York City with 982 attorneys worldwide, with offices in Washington, D.C., Northern California, London, Paris, Madrid, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo and São Paulo. Founded in 1849, it is consistently ranked as one of the most prestigious law firms in the world.
Stanley Rogers Resor was an American lawyer, United States military officer, and government official.
James C. Goodale was the former vice president and general counsel for The New York Times and, later, the Times' vice chairman.
Edward Cochrane McLean was a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
John Richard Dunne is a Republican politician and lawyer from Long Island, New York. Dunne was a major figure in New York Republican politics in the second half of the 20th century. He is best remembered for his twenty-three years in the State Senate and his involvement in the Attica prison riots.
Harold Harris Healy Jr. was an American lawyer who had a distinguished career in international law. A graduate of Yale University (1943), where he was a member of Skull and Bones, and Yale Law School (1949), he worked for the United States Department of Justice and was a longtime partner of the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton. He was notably the first American President of the Union Internationale des Avocats, was Chairman and Treasurer of the Legal Aid Society, and was a recipient of the Légion d'honneur (Chevalier).
Eli Whitney Debevoise was a prominent New York lawyer who co-founded the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton and periodically served in a variety of high-profile government positions.
Francis Taylor Pearsons Plimpton was an American diplomat, New York City lawyer, partner at the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton and a president of the New York City Bar Association.
Adrian William DeWind, Sr. was a tax attorney, political adviser, and founder of Human Rights Watch.
Barbara Paul Robinson is a New York City lawyer with the firm Debevoise & Plimpton who specializes in Trusts and Estates law, and a former president of the New York City Bar Association.
Robert B. McKay was a dean of New York University Law School, a former president of the New York City Bar Association, and the chair of McKay Commission, which investigated the 1971 Attica Prison riot.
James Paul Oetken, known professionally as J. Paul Oetken, is a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He is the first openly gay man to be confirmed as an Article III judge.
Warren Neil Eggleston is an American lawyer who served as the White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. Eggleston was the fourth person to hold this post during the Obama administration.
David W. Rivkin was the President of the International Bar Association and the Co-Chair of the International Dispute Resolution Group at Debevoise and Plimpton. He has been with Debevoise since 1981.
Robert Brandt von Mehren was a young lawyer in the Hiss-Chambers Case in 1949 who rose to become a leading expert in international arbitration in a career spent at the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton.
Zelia Peet Ruebhausen was an American civic leader and policy advisor.
