Upon graduation, he served from 1931 to 1933 as an Assistant Dean at Yale Law School and instructed courses in business, finance and procedure. At the same time, he was producing scholarship as a member of the influential legal realism school of thought, working with future Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas on an article entitled "A Factual Study of Bankruptcy Administration and Some Suggestions", published in 1932. However, his most influential works, done with Norman Meyers, were two articles entitled "Legal Planning of Petroleum Production". These pioneering studies offered an alternative to the then-prevailing practices of controlled production in the petroleum industry, which were leading to dramatic boom/bust cycles. They gained the interest of the government, especially since the legal minds behind the New Deal were staunch supporters of legal realism.