Francis Menton received his B.A. in Economics and Mathematics summa cum laude from Yale University in 1972; and his J.D. degree cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1975. In 1975 he joined the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP as an associate, becoming a partner in 1984, and retiring after 40 years in 2016.
During his legal career, Mr. Menton specialized in the field of commercial litigation, with a national practice that entailed trying cases in dozens of courthouses around the country. He was best known for cases involving complex and technical subject matters, such as innovative financial and insurance products or the malpractice of actuaries.
In 2012 Mr. Menton launched the Manhattan Contrarian blog, where over the ensuing nine years he has published well over 1,000 articles on issues of public policy. Close to one-third of the posts at Manhattan Contrarian deal with the subject of climate change broadly defined, including such topics as the application of the formal scientific method to what passes for climate “science” in today’s academia, and evaluation of the potential costs and practical difficulties of attempting to replace our current energy systems with intermittent wind and solar electricity generation.
Mr. Menton is a board member and current President of the American Friends of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. He lives in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan.