John W. Phillips Honoring Judge Dwyer

Judge William Dwyer is this year's Charles A. Goldmark Distinguished Service Award winner. So many of us had looked forward to a talk by Judge Dwyer today that would have been both whimsical and wise; that would have taught us and entertained us, and that ultimately would have drawn us to a deeper understanding of who we are as lawyers, what ennobles our profession, and what will endure in the law long after we have carved our initials in its trunk.

I understand that Judge Dwyer directed that there be no memorial service for him and there are doubtless valid personal reasons for that which I hope these remarks do not disrespect or dishonor. I prefer to think that the judge appreciated that in his absence there would be no one quite as capable as he to bring reason to our loss, no one who could explain how this loss is a spur to each of us to pursue our personal and professional lives with the same zest and good spirit that he so plainly embodied.

He certainly did just that for me and I expect for many others in this room when he spoke with calm and grace at our good friend Chuck Goldmark's and his family's memorial service 17 years ago – Chuck, that fine man – himself both whimsical and wise – for whom this award is so appropriately named. I am delighted and grateful that Peter and Georgia Goldmark and their children are here today to share in celebrating both Judge Dwyer and Chuck (who as my mentor and running buddy rarely missed an opportunity for a lunch-time run on a rainy winter day just like this one).

The Legal Foundation of Washington administers Washington's IOLTA program. It provides funding for legal services to the poor and for legal education to our citizens. It stands for the proposition that access to justice for all is pivotal to respect for our system of justice, to the legitimacy of our profession, and to the integrity of the courts themselves. How fitting that we honor Judge Dwyer today with the Legal Foundation's Goldmark award.

We are all familiar with Judge Dwyer's heralded career as a trial lawyer and judge and his abiding respect for the jury system. He was not molded as a lawyer by billable hours or business plans or law firm managers; his professional life was not preoccupied with profitability margins and productivity, a practice where the economics of the business of law dominate the pages of the legal press and where pro bono publico is an exception carved from the normal business with which we are otherwise so vigorously engaged.

And yet the phrase pro bono publico, for the good of the public, is an apt moniker for the career of this modest, yet stunningly skilled lawyer and judge. His life reminds us that pro bono is not charity work for the résumé but something that is a part of what it means to be a part of a working system of justice, part of being a lawyer as citizen.

My own relationship with Judge Dwyer was quite limited by comparison with many of you in this room. I hope these reflections do not belittle his breadth. Yet my experience of him was more than enough to discern that Judge Dwyer was for the good of the public. I tried a number of cases in his court. He was always the most capable lawyer in the courtroom and always the most careful to ensure that we lesser lawyers who appeared before him still felt we brought value to the venue.

He once graciously entertained my kids in chambers after a big argument. He immediately asked them about their impressions of my argument, making me nervous and them feel the importance of their own views, their own analysis, their own ability to engage in – and be part of – the workings of justice. It was the first (and I might add last) time my children said something about what I do for a living that reflected anything other than complete disinterest.

I remember another day before I was to try a big case before Judge Dwyer where I represented a multinational corporate defendant. The judge offered to be the settlement judge, even though he was the trial judge, and the parties agreed, so the day before trial we rolled up our sleeves and got to work with the judge. My client, the general counsel of the corporation who bore all the earmarks of a prep school and ivy league education, indeed he was a Rhodes Scholar, over the course of the day became so enthralled with the judge that in the final clinch, he gave Judge Dwyer unilateral authority to set the final settlement amount. My major challenge as we negotiated the final details of settlement was to conceal from opposing counsel just how smitten with the judge my client had become. This, in a context of a settlement involving many millions of dollars being paid by my client.

I remember another time when I accompanied Judge Dwyer on a tour of a civil commitment facility in a case in which I represented a number of civilly committed individuals who were plaintiffs in a civil rights suit. It is not often that a federal judge strolls through a civil commitment facility, so you won't be surprised to learn that a number of my clients viewed this as an opportunity to have a personal interview with the judge. He stopped and graciously spoke with each of them. One fellow, emboldened by the judge's politeness, came up to Judge Dwyer and began complaining about the low pay at his kitchen job – a subject about which the judge, as you might imagine, was empowered to do absolutely nothing. The judge pondered the problem and then sympathetically observed in response, “I know the pay is lousy, but at least the work is steady.” That one sentence, reflecting both respect for my client and just a hint of whimsy, is how I will remember Judge Dwyer.

A man who felt the law viscerally, who understood it deeply, a man who ennobled those around him and who, through example, demonstrated that each of us can fulfill personal and professional purpose “for the good of the public,” – sometimes with just a hint of humor.

It is my great honor on behalf of the Legal Foundation of Washington to award the 2002 Charles A. Goldmark Distinguished Service Award to Judge William Dwyer, and to his family, in particular, to his wife Vasiliki, his sons Charles and Tony, and his daughter Joanna Dwyer Tiffany who will accept the award on his behalf.