U.S. Attorney and Pitt Alumnus David J. Hickton to Deliver Pitt Law School Commencement Address May 13

PITTSBURGH—David J. Hickton (LAW ’81), United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, will deliver the address for the University of Pittsburgh School of Law’s 2011 commencement ceremony to be held at 3 p.m. May 13 in Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium and Museum, Fifth Avenue and Bigelow Boulevard, Oakland.

The University will confer 236 Juris Doctor degrees, four Master of Laws degrees, and 10 Master of Studies in Law degrees. A reception will immediately follow the ceremony in the Cathedral of Learning Commons Room, 4200 Fifth Ave., Oakland.

President Barack Obama nominated Hickton for U.S. Attorney on May 20, 2010; he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Aug. 5. Hickton is the sixth Pitt law alumnus to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Hickton began his career as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Gustave Diamond, serving from 1981 to 1983. He was an associate attorney at Dickie, McCamey, and Chilcote from 1983 to 1987, leaving the firm to cofound Burns, White, and Hickton LLC in 1987. In addition, Hickton taught antitrust law at Duquesne University School of Law as an adjunct professor of law for more than a decade.

A fellow in both the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County, Hickton has been selected for inclusion in the peer-reviewed publication Best Lawyers in America and also was named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer by Super Lawyers magazine.

Since 2004, Hickton has been an executive board member of the Pittsburgh Public Theater and has served as its president. He also has been a member of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. From 1999 to 2001, Hickton served on the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts at the request of then-President Bill Clinton.

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