Wayne Barnett received an A.B. in economics in 1950 from Harvard College. He stayed on in Cambridge to study law serving as articles editor of the Harvard Law Review and receiving an LL.B. in 1953. Barnett was law clerk to Mr. Justice Harlan of the United States Supreme Court in 1955-56, then practiced with the Washington firm of Covington Burling for two years. In 1958 he left private practice to become Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States. In this capacity Mr. Barnett and his eight colleagues in the office had the responsibility for arguing cases before the Supreme Court on behalf of the United States, and also for authorizing appeals in cases lost by the government in a lower court or agency. In this latter function especially, the Solicitor General's office is obviously important as a policy-making body. Mr. Barnett left the Solicitor General's office in 1965 to become first assistant in the Office of the Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice. In 1966 he yielded to the temptation to try his hand at teaching and joined the Stanford faculty. He teaches primarily in the area of taxation and contracts.