Roderick M. Hills

Roderick Maltman Hills (March 9, 1931 – October 29, 2014) served as chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission between 1975 and 1977. Later he worked at the investment bank of Drexel Burnham Lambert and then at the law firm of Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine.^[1] In 1962, he founded the law firm of Munger, Tolles, Hills, and Rickershauser (now Munger, Tolles & Olson) along with six other lawyers.^[2] He was also Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the US-ASEAN Business Council.^[3]

During his career he also served as a partner in the Washington law firm of Latham & Watkins, as the chief executive officer of Peabody Coal and—in the early 1980s—as the Washington-based head of a merchant banking arm of Sears that was known as Sears World Trade.^[4] He had been, since 1996, a partner at the law firm of Hills & Stern. From 1984 until his death in 2014, he served as chairman of Hills Enterprises, Ltd. (formerly The Manchester Group, Ltd.).^[5]

Born in Seattle, Washington in 1931, he grew up in Whittier, California, where he played high school football under the same coach as former President Richard M. Nixon. A janitor's son, he was the first in his family to go to college.^[6][7] Hills received his bachelor's degree from Stanford University and then his LL.B. at Stanford Law School in 1955,^[8] following which he served as Law Clerk to Justice Stanley F. Reed, Supreme Court of the United States, 1955–57. He was married to former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Carla Anderson Hills from 1958 until his death. His son, Roderick M. Hills, Jr., is a law professor at the New York University School of Law.^[9]

Hills died on October 29, 2014, at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore at age 83 of heart failure.^[10][11]

Cell 34A, President Gerald Ford and Roderick Hills greeting, handshaking near desk in Oval Office. Cells 35A-36A, Ford, Roderick Hills, Douglas Bennett, Cheney, seated around desk (Photos May 28, 1976, by Thomas, White House Photographic Office, Gerald Ford Library, B0010 NLGRF)

Cells 9-11, Roderick Hills meets with President Ford (back to camera) to discuss vacancy on SEC (Photos May 28, 1976, by Thomas, White House Photographic Office, Gerald Ford Library, B0039 NLGRF)

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