More than 40 years after he ended his tenure as dean of Stanford Law School, Bayless Manning continues to influence legal education. He was a pioneer in corporate law and a champion of interdisciplinary study, and his ideas produced several innovations, including the establishment of the joint JD/MBA degree at Stanford.
Manning died at home in Boise, Idaho, on September 18, 2011. He was 88.
A native of Bristol, Okla., Manning was a cryptanalyst during World War II and helped break the Japanese naval code that enabled a U.S. victory at Midway. He graduated first in his class at Yale in 1949 and went on to the law school where he was editor in chief of the Yale Law Review.
Never far from "real world" issues that engaged the legal profession, Manning was an influential thinker and commentator during his time as Stanford Law School dean from 1964 to 1971. His essays and articles pushed for modernized laws governing stock appraisals during mergers and rules related to capital disbursements. He created externships that enabled Stanford law students to work pro bono and receive credit for judicial clerkships and work at public-interest law firms.
After leaving Stanford, Manning became the first full-time president of the Council on Foreign Relations. He joined the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and served on the boards of several U.S. and international firms and nonprofits.
Manning learned about the technology firm Keynetics in San Diego when it was a three-person operation located in a garage. He joined Keynetics' board and helped relocate it to Boise in 2000, where it has thrived.
Manning was "my mentor, one of my best friends and a father figure," says Keynetics CEO Bradley Wiskirchen. "He called himself an industrial architect because he couldn't go to any meeting without coming up with a way to run things better. I called him a relationship architect because if he liked you, he would automatically introduce you to his friends. That was one of the most important things in his life—connecting all people that he liked so they could get to know one another."
Manning is survived by his wife, Alexandra Zekovic; children Bay, '73, Elizabeth, '76, Lucia, '79, Matthew and Nevenka, '04; and six grandchildren.
Julie Muller Mitchell, ’79, is a writer in San Francisco.
