LACBA mourns the death of renowned Pasadena probate attorney John D. Taylor, who passed away at age 92. Many thanks to Kathleen Tuttle for composing the following tribute.

John D. Taylor, who served as LACBA president from 1978-79, died on April 12 of this year. John was admitted to the California Bar in 1960, practiced estates and trust law for 56 years at his own firm of Taylor Kupfer Summers and Rhodes in downtown and later Pasadena and, for nearly as long, was a familiar and engaging personality at Chancery Club meetings. A 1959 graduate of U.C. Berkeley Law, then called Boalt Hall, John excelled at the law and was Order of the Coif. A glance at his home library attests to the breadth of his interests: not only his love of legal history, biographies of famous lawyers, his fondness for Boalt Hall professors and their oral histories, but many literary works through the ages. According to his family, John did not watch much TV, didn’t waste time with much news, he READ.

John will be remembered as an exemplar of leadership within the County Bar at a time when the organization was revered as one of high standards and deep influence by most of legal LA. In his extensive Bar work he credits one of his lasting reforms, in the mid-1960s, as eliminating the ways in which the organization had black balled minority members.

In his spare time John loved hiking and fishing in the California Sierras. He is survived by two daughters and several grandchildren.