Tribute to John Pickering

Authors

Timothy B. Dyk, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Abstract

It is very appropriate that we are here today to honor John Pickering, who, for more than five decades, was a leading member of our bar. I first met John when I joined the small firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in 1964, two years after it was founded. The three founding fathers of the firm were formidable figures, particularly to a young lawyer, and John Pickering was no exception. I do not mean that John was unkind. He was the kindest of people. But there was something particularly serious about him, and I always wondered whether that had to do with growing up in the prewar years. He had a demeanor that seemed to preclude coming to work in casual clothes or bantering during the work day or taking the associates out to a local watering spot after work. I remember that John's secretary was known as "Miss Blackney"; there was a formality even about John's secretary.

Recommended Citation

Timothy B. Dyk, Tribute to John Pickering, 104 Mich. L. Rev. 181 (2005).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol104/iss2/3