Clarence Milton Updegraff was born June 10, 1893 in Dallas Center, Iowa, son of Milton and Ada Adams Updegraff. He graduated from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1916. In 1918 he became a professor of law at George Washington University. In that same year he married Erna Busse. In 1924 he became a teaching fellow at Harvard University where, in 1925, he obtained his S.J.D. degree. In 1926 he returned to Iowa City to teach law at the University. He served as Vice-President and assistant to the President of the UI from 1934 -- 1938. He served as assistant attorney general of the state of Iowa from 1933 -- 1937.

Erna died in 1963. In 1964, Updegraff moved to California to teach law at the University of California - Hastings College of Law. He married Helen Hart Weber in 1971 and retired from teaching in 1972.

Updegraff wrote Regulation of Public Utilities in Iowa and co-authored the first edition of Arbitration of Labor Disputes. He is the sole author of the second and third editions of this book.

Updegraff died in 1978.