This year’s recipient is honored for outstanding leadership in law and public service. A Williams political science major who played squash and lacrosse and was a member of Gargoyle, our Eph earned a Harvard law degree and soon landed a position at the Boston firm of Foley Hoag…where he has worked ever since. So much for the short version of a truly remarkable career. Over four decades as a trial lawyer and many years as chairman of Foley Hoag’s litigation department, his work has ranged across business law from intellectual property to real estate. A fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, he was ranked Massachusetts’ leading general commercial litigator in 2003 and in 2004. And that’s not the half of it. In a parallel—unpaid—career, he has represented the underrepresented, from draft resisters to prison inmates. While president of the Boston Bar Association he worked to place 1,200 volunteer lawyers in public schools as mentors and advisors. He’s worked equally hard and well to uphold the strength and integrity of the judiciary. He has chaired the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court advisory board on management and reform. He’s the past president of the Crime and Justice Foundation, and he has authored legislation creating the Massachusetts Criminal Sentencing Commission. For many years he has taught civil trial practice at Northeastern Law School, and he co-taught a Winter Study class at Williams with Martha Coakley ’75, now state attorney general. A Williams trustee from 1996 to 2011, he has served his class as planned giving chair and 50th Reunion Fund vice chair. He’s also served on WCMA’s visiting committee and on the presidential search committee that brought Morty Schapiro back to the college. And when all of this gets boring, he plays highly competitive squash, has run a couple of marathons, and engaged, he says, “in other forms of self destruction designed to deny advancing age.” This year’s Kellogg Award winner stands for many things, chief among them a deeply respectful care for others. He often says “the best lawyers are the most courteous,” and he walks that talk.For civility and civil action to his profession and his many communities, we are privileged to bestow this year’s Kellogg Award on a member of the Class of 1962: Michael B. Keating
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