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SF Giants’ Managing Partner William Neukom Speaks Passionately on World Justice Project at The National Judicial College

By Heather Singer, NJC Communications Specialist

11/21/2008

As founder of one of the world’s largest justice endeavors, William H. Neukom, Esq., managing partner of the San Francisco Giants and former board member for The National Judicial College, spoke passionately to more than 100 people recently at The National Judicial College’s Tom C. Clark Auditorium.

“Justice means so many different things to so many different people but is built on universal principles,” he said.

The NJC’s Jackson Lectures are held in honor of Justice Robert H. Jackson, a 1940s Supreme Court Justice best remembered for his role as chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg War Trials. The NJC presents these lectures two times a year at the end of each two-week General Jurisdiction course for the course participants as well as community residents.

Mr. Neukom became managing partner of the San Francisco Giants on Oct. 1, 2008. Previously, he had re-joined Preston Gates & Ellis LLP in 2002 as a partner in the Business Practice Group in Seattle. Prior to that, he held the position of executive vice president of law and corporate affairs at Microsoft where he spent 17 years managing the company’s legal, government affairs and philanthropic activities. Mr. Neukom served as a board member on the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, YMCA of Greater Seattle, Dartmouth College, University of Puget Sound and the Corporate Council for the Arts.

He is a 1964 graduate of Dartmouth College and received his law degree from Stanford University in 1967. He has been active in organized bar work, serving as chair of the Young Lawyers Division of the Seattle-King County Bar Association and the American Bar Association as well as secretary and member of the House of Delegates of the ABA. He served as the Washington State Delegate to the House of Delegates and the chair of the Presidential Task Force on Goal VIII (Rule of Law). Mr. Neukom was appointed to The National Judicial College Board of Trustees in 2003 by the ABA and served until his term expired in 2006.

Justice Jackson was born in Spring Creek, Penn., on Feb. 13, 1892. He never went to college, but attended Albany Law School for a year. He obtained most of his legal education under the old apprenticeship system as a law clerk and did not get his law degree until after he was named as a justice to the Supreme Court of the United States, when he was awarded an honorary degree by Albany Law School.

Justice Jackson was invited by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to serve in the New Deal government, first as General Counsel to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and later as solicitor general and attorney general. He took his seat as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States on Oct. 6, 1941, and served until his death in 1954. Justice Jackson is best remembered for his vigorous decision and wisdom.

The decision to honor Justice Jackson with this lecture series was made by his friend and Supreme Court colleague, Justice Tom C. Clark, chairman of the Joint Committee for the Effective Administration of Justice and one of NJC’s founders, for whom NJC’s auditorium is named.