Robert M. Pennoyer

This is a delightful memoir of a life dedicated to public service by a grandson of J.P. Morgan who served for two years in the Pacific aboard a cruiser heavily damaged at Iwo Jima with almost 150 killed and wounded. In the 1950s after law school he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in New York followed by four years with the General Counsel in the Office of the Secretary of Defence, where he defied Senator Joe McCarthy by directing his Pentagon witnesses to refuse to answer McCarthy’s questions. Returning to New York, he joined Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, then 20 lawyers, and helped to build the firm which today with close to 200 lawyers is one of the nation’s leading firms known for its outstanding record of pro bono service.