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As one of America’s most respected trial lawyers, decorated Marine veteran John Keker is known for his fearless defense of justice and civic integrity as a lawyer at the downtown firm Keker, Van Nest & Peters.
This year, his firm gained national attention as one of the first in the country to criticize President Donald Trump’s presidential memos and executive orders targeting big law firms and attorneys for retribution. While nine firms agreed earlier this year to provide nearly $1 billion worth of free legal services to the administration in order to avoid litigation, Keker stood up to Trump and defended San Francisco’s values on a national stage.
In doing so, Keker embodied The City’s spirit: courageous, principled and unafraid to challenge power when the rule of law and decency are at stake. Before we began our interview, Keker pointed out a framed photograph hanging in his Jackson Square office of a young Nelson Mandela after being acquitted of treason in 1956 — a constant inspiration to keep fighting the good fight.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What does being named a San Franciscan of the Year mean to you? I was obviously picked on athletic ability, and I beat Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, and Buster Posey.
Seriously, it’s a great honor. I moved to San Francisco with my family in 1971 determined to stay here. When we first moved here, I had a public-defender job with a public-defender salary, and I needed $500 to pay the mover. I went to the Bank of America at Fisherman’s Wharf to ask to borrow it, and the woman said, “You don’t meet our criteria.” And I started screaming and said, “I’m going to be somebody in this town someday, and I’m going to bring down the Bank of America!”
I was very disappointed when Bank of America snuck out of town to Charlotte, and I didn’t have a chance to bring them down. So, it’s nice to be San Franciscan of the Year.
What brought you out to San Francisco? I was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and I came out here when I was 13 — there’s a picture of me riding the cable car — and I just thought this was great. I love San Francisco. My wife and I came up to San Francisco from Camp Pendleton the weekend before I went to Vietnam.
How did your service in the Marines shape how you practice law? A lot of practicing law is dealing with fear, and service in the Marines helps you deal with fear. After being in combat, other things don’t seem quite as scary as they might otherwise.
Fear rears its head in every trial. The jurors are scared that they’re not going to do the right thing. The prosecutor is scared that he or she is going to lose. The judge is scared that you’re going to make a fool of him or her. You’re scared that you’re not going to do right by your client. Your client is scared that you might go to jail or lose the case. There’s fear everywhere.
Earlier this year, why did you decide to publicly challenge the Trump administration when they went after law firms representing clients opposing them? It wasn’t much of a decision — we were outraged by what they were doing, so it just felt like an outlet. You have to resist when something awful happens, you’ve got to be heard. John Lewis, the great civil-rights leader and congressman, who was knocked unconscious on the Selma bridge by Bull Connor and his goons, said [that] when you see something awful happen, you’ve got to speak up. You’ve got to stand up. Democracy is not a state of being. It’s an act.
What was the impact of representing that perspective in your New York Times editorial? We had a lot of people who said, “We want to work at your firm, or we want to hire your firm, because we want lawyers who are fighters, not the people who are going to cave to some cretin like Donald Trump.” We got a huge amount of kudos from people who wanted to help, wanted to join in.
Finish this sentence: Being a San Franciscan means … Being a San Franciscan means living in one of the most beautiful places in the world. If anybody ever said, “We’re gonna nail you down, and you’re not going to be able to travel more than 150 miles from where you live,” I would say, “Nail me in San Francisco, because within 150 miles, we have everything you can imagine.”
Speaking of being within those 150 miles, where do you like to eat? Tommaso’s has just opened again, and is terrific. I eat at Kokkari like it’s my cafeteria — I had lunch and dinner there yesterday. I love Cotogna, which is right here in the neighborhood [of Jackson Square]. I love Seven Hills, which is up by my house on Russian Hill. There’s a billion places in San Francisco to eat — that’s one of the nice things about it.