James McCauley Landis was an influential attorney and close personal friend and associate of JFK’s father. He acted as an advisor to Jack for many decades.
Landis was born in 1899 and had a successful career in the law until his suicide in 1964. Widely regarded as brilliant, he was also plagued by an erratic and self-aborbed personality. A protege of legal titan and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, he partnered with Benjamin V. Cohen to draft the landmark 1933 Securities Act.