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What's New? | Faculty in the News |  News Archive | News Home
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Chief Judge John M. Walker, Jr. to Address 2005 Graduates
Chief Judge John M. Walker, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, one of the nation’s outstanding jurists, delivered the keynote address at the 104th Brooklyn Law School Commencement on June 2, 2005 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Now in his twentieth year as a member of the federal judiciary, Judge Walker has had a distinguished career that has included important positions in government service, private practice, and academia. Judge Walker was born in New York City in 1940. He graduated in 1962 from Yale University and the University of Michigan Law School in 1966. Following law school, he served as State Counsel to the Republic of Botswana. He then became an associate with the firm of Davis, Polk & Wardwell in New York. In 1970, he was appointed as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Five years later, he returned to private practice, first as an associate and then as a partner with the firm of Carter, Ledyard & Milburn. In 1981, he was appointed to serve as Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. There, he was responsible for Treasury policy in law enforcement, regulatory, and trade matters with oversight over the United States Customs Service; Secret Service; Federal Law Enforcement Training Center; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; and the Office of Foreign Assets Control. In 1985, he was appointed as a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York by President Ronald Reagan. From 1987 to 1992, he also served as Special Counsel to the United States Administrative Conference. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush appointed him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He became Chief Judge on October 1, 2000. In his two decades on the bench, Judge Walker has authored decisions on many important legal and constitutional issues, including the liability of corporate directors for paying a “green mail” premium to stave off an attempted takeover; the First Amendment rights of Americans working overseas; the extent to which computer programs are protected by copyright; the availability to corporate employees of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination; the tension between the United States Sentencing Guidelines penalizing defendants who refuse to cooperate and their Fifth Amendment privilege; and whether the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel is violated when a defendant’s lawyer has a conflict of interest. Judge Walker has served as a Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School, as an Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, and he has been actively involved in several international rule of law projects. He has lectured at law schools in Beijing and Shanghai on criminal procedure and rule of law issues. He assisted in the drafting of legislation to strengthen the judiciary and promote judicial independence in Albania. In 2003, he taught a seminar on Constitutional Law for Iraqi legal and community leaders. Judge Walker is Past-President of the Federal Judges Association, and a former member of the Budget Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He is currently a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States and serves on its Executive Committee. He is a director of the Institute of Judicial Administration. He is also a member of the American Law Institute. He is the recipient of the Federal Bar Council Learned Hand Medal for Excellence in Jurisprudence; the Maxwell Public Service Fellowship; the Secret Service Honor Award; and the Alexander Hamilton Award for Distinguished Leadership, the Treasury Department’s highest honor. Brooklyn Law School is honored to welcome Judge Walker and to award him its highest degree.
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