RIP Raoul Kennedy (1944-2026)

The SF Chronicle has an obituary for Raoul Kennedy, a past president of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers, among many other accomplishments. The obit begins:

Long time Bay Area Trial and Appel­late attor­ney, Raoul D. Kennedy, died fol­low­ing an over 20-year battle with Par­kin­son’s Dis­ease. A hugely suc­cess­ful trial law­yer, Kennedy was known for enter­tain­ing judges and jur­ies as he con­vinced them of his cli­ents’ pos­i­tions. Once after a very long trial, he was the last of dozens of law­yers to present their clos­ing argu­ment, Kennedy began with, “I feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor’s sixth hus­band. I know what I’m sup­posed to do, but I don’t know how to make it inter­est­ing.” ...

• The pub­lic­a­tion “Best Law­yers in Amer­ica” lis­ted him in five cat­egor­ies: Appel­late Prac­tice, Bet the Com­pany Lit­ig­a­tion, Com­mer­cial Lit­ig­a­tion, Insur­ance Law and Mass Tort Lit­ig­a­tion. 
• Raoul was a mem­ber of the by-invit­a­tion-only Amer­ican Col­lege of Trial Law­yers, The Amer­ican Board of Trial Advoc­ates, and was a past Pres­id­ent of the Cali­for­nia Academy of Appel­late Law­yers. In 2005, he was chosen as the Cali­for­nia Trial Law­yer of the year and induc­ted into the Cali­for­nia Trial Law­yers Hall of Fame. He was act­ive in law related activ­it­ies and was a Ninth Cir­cuit Law­yer Rep­res­ent­at­ive, a mem­ber of the Com­mis­sion on Judi­cial Nom­in­ees Eval­u­ation (JNE) and was the co-author of the Cali­for­nia treat­ise, The Expert Wit­ness Guide.