Henry King: reflections on a legal giant.

• Author: Entin, Jonathan L.
• Position: A Tribute to Henry King - Testimonial

Henry King and I were suite mates for 24 years. Even now, four months after his passing, I find it disorienting not to have Henry--often in an elegant suit and sneakers--stop in my office to say hello and, after looking at the color of my shirt, remark that it must be a white-collar day or a blue-collar day.

Henry had an insatiable curiosity about almost everything. Like a great journalist, he was always asking other people questions because he knew that everyone has a story to tell. But Henry had his own views, and he was never shy about expressing them. At faculty workshops and at the Canada-U.S. Law Institute conferences that he organized and led for so many years, Henry regularly asked the first question, and it was usually a humdinger. Henry had a unique perspective as a private practitioner, public servant, and professor, and he brought that perspective to everything he did as a member of our faculty.

What really stands out for me about the CUSLI conferences is how tight a ship Henry ran. Nobody got on the program without a paper in hand ahead of time. And for years he kept the proceedings on schedule with an enormous cowbell. After that bell disappeared, he found a smaller one. When that one disappeared, he just clapped his hands and announced that the next session was about to stag. You could hardly tell the difference.

Henry had an inexhaustible supply of wonderful stories. He seemed to know everyone who was worth knowing and to have worked with all of them. And, yes, he did send his pregnant wife home from Nuremberg so that there would be no question of the child's status as a natural-born citizen if she ever decided to run for President. But in the circles in which Henry traveled this was not pretentious, just prudent.

Even as he traveled in ratified circles that the rest of us can only dream about, Henry was also a wonderful colleague. Not only was he great to talk with, he was always willing to provide moral and intellectual support when it was needed. For example, a few years ago I got cited by the university for having "excess combustibles" in my office. When he found out, Henry instantly volunteered to represent me. I was, of course, enormously flattered that a real lawyer might actually come to my assistance, and without charge to boot. At the same time, I understood that Henry's offer was not entirely altruistic. He knew that he would be pretty high on the list of suspects if the university actually decided to make all of...