| 1 | Name: | The Honorable Vincent Lee McKusick | |
| Institution: | Pierce Atwood | ||
| Year Elected: | 1986 | ||
| Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | ||
| Subdivision: | 502. Physicians, Theologians, Lawyers, Jurists, Architects, and Members of Other Professions | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1921 | ||
| Death Date: | December 3, 2014 | ||
Vincent L. McKusick was Chief Justice (Retired) of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court at the time of his death at 93 on December 3, 2014. On entering the Army in 1943, after graduating from Bates College, he participated in a specialized training program in engineering and completed his military service on the Manhattan Project. He earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology prior to entering Harvard Law School in 1947. A President of the Harvard Law Review, Vincent McKusick, upon graduation, served as law clerk to Judge Learned Hand and to Justice Felix Frankfurter. In 1952 Vincent McKusick joined the Portland, Maine firm of Hutchinson, Pierce Atwood & Scribner. For twenty-five years he engaged in a broad general practice with emphasis on appellate, corporate, and public utility matters. He also worked to modernize the rules of procedure for the Maine courts and co-authored two editions of the classic work on Maine Civil Practice. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in 1977, the only such appointment directly from the bar since the appointment of Maine's first Chief Justice in 1820. Chief Justice McKusick had responsibility for managing Maine's entire court system as well as presiding over its highest appellate court. His fourteen and one-half years as Chief Justice were marked by significant improvement in the structure and operation of all courts. In 1990-91 he served as President of the Conference of Chief Justices and Chairman of the National Center for State Courts. Following his voluntary retirement from the Court in 1992, Judge McKusick returned "of counsel" to his firm, now Pierce Atwood. In the years since he served as Special Master of the Supreme Court of the United States in three original jurisdiction suits between states and was also actively involved in private arbitration and mediation. He has served on the Board of Directors of the American Arbitration Association and in the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association and in May 2008 completed 38 years of service on the Council of the American Law Institute. Judge McKusick was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1986. | |||