James O’Brien was a partner at San Francisco law firm Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro and Chief Legal Officer of the Standard Oil Company of California. Born in 1912 in Trinidad, Colorado, O’Brien earned his undergraduate degree in 1932 from University of California, Berkeley. After graduating from Berkeley Law (formerly known as Boalt Hall) in 1935, he worked as an associate at Pillsbury, Madison, & Sutro, leaving from 1942 to 1946 to serve as a Lt. Col in the US Army. O’Brien returned to the firm until 1966, when to work as the Chief Legal Officer for Standard Oil. In this interview, O’Brien discusses his childhood in the Philippines and China, Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in the late twenties and thirties, service in army intelligence in WWII, antitrust and oil cartel cases in the fifties, and problems of international law. This interview is part of a group of interviews documenting the law firm Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro.