Weyman Ivan Lundquist

July 27, 1930 - May 19, 2019

Weyman I. Lundquist, son of Swedish immigrants Ivan Hilding Lundquist and Florence Westerholm Lundquist, died May 19, 2019. Over the course of a long and distinguished legal career, he contributed substantively to international dialog, educational programs, and environmental planning. Wey was the first member of his family to attend college and worked multiple jobs while there. From early in life, he held many jobs at once. After two years at Boston University, Wey transferred to Dartmouth College and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1952. He earned a degree from Harvard Law School in 1955. During peacetime in the late 1950s, he served in the U.S. Army, providing civilian legal assistance. Simultaneously, he taught economics at University of Maryland and worked as part-time manager of a Savings and Loan.

Next, he began working for Elliott Richardson who was U.S. Attorney in MA. They remained friends. Shortly after Alaska statehood, in 1961 Lundquist was appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney in Alaska. He lived in Anchorage and traveled around the state by plane to try jury cases. These journeys took him throughout the Alaska Federal District territory to Nome and Kotzebue in the north, then on the long, southbound leg to Juneau and Ketchikan in southeastern Alaska. Two years of justice in the wilderness made big city practice appealing, and he was ready to return to the lower 48. After leaving Anchorage and traveling south on the ALCAN Highway, he reached his destination in San Francisco. He began practicing law in California at the venerable law firm Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe. Briefly, he went back to Worcester to work as Vice-President and Counsel at State Mutual. In 1967 Wey returned to San Francisco to become a partner at Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe and continued his long association with the Firm, where his practice focused on business litigation. Known for his credibility, sincerity, and candor in the courtroom, Lundquist had a reputation as an outstanding trial lawyer. He also lectured at Stanford Business School and Stanford Research Institute.

Wey travelled to the USSR for the first time in 1974. After driving north on the ALCAN Highway, and then flying to Asia, he crossed the USSR with his family on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, starting in Nakhodka and continuing to Moscow. On this trip, he visited the Limnological Institute at Lake Baikal as part of a Lake Tahoe/Lake Baikal reciprocal study. He served on the board of Tahoe/Baikal Institute when it was formed in 1990. Mr.Lundquist was a co-founding member of the American Bar Association, Section of Litigation. After a sole practitioner from Texas approached a partner in a large Ohio firm with the idea, partners in several large law firms located around the country moved the idea forward and established the new Section of Litigation which grew to over 70,000 members. Mr. Lundquist served as Chair of the ABA Litigation Section,1978-79.

From 1980-86, he chaired the ABA Soviet Lawyer Dialogue Committee. In 1981, he organized the Lawyers Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control meeting. Throughout the remainder of the 1980s, in order to foster better relationships, Lundquist organized, hosted, and attended numerous meetings with Russian and American academicians, judges, and political leaders, including Mikhail Gorbachev. This work took him to Ukraine and Georgia, as well as to Russia. He served as advisor to 1990 Meeting on Northern Justice conducted by the Alaska, Canada, and Soviet Bars.

On sabbatical from Heller, Ehrman, Wey taught “History of Environmental Law” in the Environmental Studies Department at Dartmouth in Fall terms,1980 and 1984. Later, he taught “Managing Legal Crises” at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. In the late 1980s, Wey visited his daughter Erica who was serving in the Peace Corps in Africa, where they traveled on bicycles along the road from Burundi into Zaire. In 1993, Wey, his wife Kay Taylor, and their son Derek moved to Hanover. From 1995-2010, Wey served in the Institute for Arctic Studies at Dartmouth’s Dickey Center for International Understanding, as Acting Director, and then Senior Fellow. He was also Faculty Advisor to Dartmouth’s varsity lacrosse and soccer teams. In this role, Lundquist not only gave students direction in their studies but also shared his expertise to help them find post-college employment. For Wey, sports were a constant. He skied crosscountry and ski-jumped in high school and college. He was an avid downhill skier and heli-skiied in Canada’s Panoramic Range. He played varsity soccer at Boston University, played soccer at Dartmouth, continued playing soccer until he was 62 in a Menlo Park, CA league, and coached his youngest son’s soccer teams. Wey ran in the Bay to Breakers Race in San Francisco, the Honolulu to Diamond Head race in Hawaii, and the City 2 Surf Race in Sydney, Australia. Additionally, he was a regular on the squash courts in Hanover and at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, playing until he turned 87.

Wey appreciated opportunities opened to him through Dartmouth and funded the Lundquist Family Scholarship, for the education of two undergraduate students each year. He was also a major donor to the new Sports Pavilion, thus providing support for academics and athletics, two of his many interests. Acting on his environmental convictions, Wey permanently preserved his land in Holden, MA by converting it, in coordination with Mass Audubon and White Oak Society, into the Eagle Lake Wildlife Sanctuary. He went to California in early 2010 to teach “500 Years of Searching for the Northwest Passage and Finding it through Global Warming” at the Fromm Institute in San Francisco.

A voracious reader, Wey was also an author. He wrote The Art of Shaping the Case: Advocacy In and Out of the Courtroom and a fictional work, The Promised Land and Other Courthouse Adventures. He co-edited ABA Litigation Manual: Jury Trials and published numerous articles on trial practice, the environment, and legal history.

Mr. Lundquist served as President of SwedishAmerican Chamber of Commerce of Western United States; President, California Tomorrow; on Board of Directors, Natural Resources Defense Council; and Chair, Environmental Careers Organization. He also served on boards of American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA and University Press of New England. He belonged to the California Historical Society and to the Bohemian, Olympic, and Sierra Club. He was a Life Member of the Scandinavian Athletic Club. Mr. Lundquist was a Fellow of American College of Trial Lawyers and member of State Bar Associations in Massachusetts, Alaska, California, and Vermont. In 2015, Wey and Kay moved back to San Francisco. He became Managing Director, Technology Licensing Division at West Coast Magnetics, a familyowned business in Stockton, CA. Wey, with Kay, held regular family dinners at Sam’s Grill for his children Derek in San Francisco; Kirk from Lodi, CA; Erica and her husband Randy Krag from Witter Springs, CA; Jettora from Natick, MA; and Weyman John from Berkeley; grandchildren; his former wife, Joan D. Lundquist from Lodi; and local cousins. As his health declined, Wey appreciated living near his son Derek who visited regularly with his wife Aura, Wey’s newest grandson baby Bolt, and their family dog Boomerang. Before Wey passed away, his children and grandchildren came to be with him, and his daughter Jettora sang favorite Swedish songs. Wey has a sister Joan Swanson in Holden, MA and nieces and nephews in CO and on the east coast.

Wey was known to all for his unrelenting hard work, mental and physical vigor, open-mindedness, extraordinary generosity, egalitarian and gregarious nature, and wonderful sense of humor. He was a kind and loving father who will be greatly missed and always remembered. Weyman Ivan Lundquist was born July 27,1930 in Worcester, MA. The family will have a private Celebration of his remarkable Life. A fine way to honor Wey is to spread goodwill and to work in concert with others to protect the health of our planet. For those who would like to contribute in his memory, please consider: Woods Hole Research Center,149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth, MA 02540; Natural Resources Defense Council, 40 West 20th St.,11th flr., NYC 10114; or Trust for Public Land,101 Montgomery Street, #900, San Francisco 94104.