Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Page 1
Antitrust, Patent Attorney Elwood S. Kendrick Dead at 94
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A funeral service will be held this Saturday for veteran antitrust and patent attorney Elwood Kendrick, who died last Wednesday at the age of 94.
The service is set to begin 10 a.m. at St. James Church, located at 3903 Wilshire Blvd.
Antitrust attorney Marc M. Seltzer, who knew Kendrick for 30 years in both a professional and personal capacity, told the MetNews
“He was a wonderful lawyer. He had great wit and was a marvelous storyteller. He will be very deeply missed.”
Pointing to Kendrick’s involvement in the Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society as a founding member, Seltzer—who is now president of the society—added that Kendrick “played a leading role in this society from its earliest days.” The society was established in 1985 to preserve and present to the public the history of law in the western U.S. and the Pacific Islands.
Seltzer said he worked together with Kendrick on a number of cases, and noted the lawyer was involved in many important patent cases over the years.
Los Angeles County Bar Association President-Elect Gretchen Nelson, who litigates complex class action cases involving antitrust and securities law, noted that Kendrick was “instrumental in developing the law on the interplay of patent and antitrust issues.”
In an e-mail, she also remarked on the longevity of his career:
‘He was working on cases up until at least 2003 (which makes him a workaholic) but he loved it—he would head downtown to work, drop by the California and have lunch and then head back to work.”
One of his major clients was Litton Industries, she added.
Kendrick was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1947 and remained on active status until February 2005.
He began his legal career as counsel for Shell Development in San Francisco, later joining the U.S. Department of Justice as a special attorney in its antitrust division.
After working as a patent lawyer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which assigned him to the Manhattan Project, Kendrick went into private practice sharing offices with prominent antitrust lawyer and later San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto.
Kendrick worked with Alioto on the brief for the U.S. Supreme Court case of Radovich v. National Football League, 352 U.S. 445 (1957), which held that professional football was not exempt from federal antitrust law.
Kendrick was an alumnus of North Dakota State University and graduated from the University of Illinois School of Law in 1937.
Copyright 2007, Metropolitan News Company