Francis W. Laurent was born in Thorp, Wisconsin, on July 22, 1901, the oldest of six children of Frank W. and Margaret Oesau Laurent. In 1912, the family moved onto a farm in Worden, Wisconsin. In 1918 Laurent graduated from Thorp High School, and then spent the next year working on the family farm before entering the U.S. Naval Academy. After graduation from Annapolis in 1923 he spent the next seven years on active duty. In 1931 Laurent received a diploma from the Naval War College, then attended George Washington School of Law (1931-1932), and graduated from Stanford University with an M.B.A. in 1934. He later attended the University of Wisconsin Law School, graduating in 1936.
Laurent spent the year 1936-1937 as an assistant in the office of the Wisconsin Attorney General where, among other duties, he prepared draft briefs. In 1937 he joined the staff of the Tennessee Valley Authority as an attorney. In this position he prepared opinions, researched historical and legal issues, and drafted reports. He left the TVA in 1940 to take a position as special assistant to the judge advocate general of the Navy. There Laurent was responsible for planning and implementing the modernization of the Navy's contract system and editing Laws Relating to the Navy, Annotated, the official Navy lawbook. He also acted as the regulation counsel for the department.
In 1946 Laurent retired from the Navy, retaining the permanent rank of captain, and accepted a position as assistant chief for Deconcentration Policy of the Decartelization Branch, Office of Military Government for Germany (OMGUS). His duties included assembling information on German industries, particularly the major industrial combines, and preparing documentation and directives that required the reorganization of several of these firms (Henschel, Robert Bosch, VKF, and Good Hope). Other responsibilities included legal analyses of proposed actions and the assemblage of information on German-owned companies in Austria. Laurent resigned from this position in 1948 when it appeared that the Decartelization Branch was being prevented from carrying out its assigned responsibilities.
Laurent then returned home to Wisconsin to manage the family farm and also to work on various special projects regarding governmental administration. From 1949 to 1966 he was a senior research associate with the University of Wisconsin Law School, as well as a member (1957-1962) of the National Security Study Group. During this period he also published articles and monographs in various journals and wrote books on dairying in Wisconsin, water resources law, military defense, and a genealogy of his mother's family.
During his career, Laurent was a member of numerous professional associations and historical groups. In 1937 Laurent married Grace R. King of Providence, Rhode Island. They had two children, a son, Jerome K., born in 1940, and a daughter, Joyce, born in 1942. He died in Stanley, Wisconsin, on March 26, 1983.
