Jim Tipton died in his Kensington home on February 26, 2013, just 10 days before his 93rd birthday. Jim was born in 1920 in a small town in Nebraska. At a young age, he earned a full scholarship to Columbia University Law School, where after only 1 semester, he was drafted into World War II. He survived the Battle of the Bulge and was later sent to Dachau, where he aided in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals at the Dachau War Crimes Trials.

After the War, he returned to California–for he had fallen in love with and married a California girl–where he finished law school at Boalt and proceeded to practice law in San Francisco for half a century, interrupted only when he was recalled into the Korean War, during which he helped to further develop the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. He always worked for justice and fairness, both in his practice–where, on one occasion, he defended the U.C. students arrested for protesting the House Un-American Activities Committee meetings in San Francisco–and in his private life.

With his wife Betty, who died in 2006, he lived in Kensington for more than 60 years. The couple had 3 children, Carolyn, Jamie, and Tom, all of whom survive them. Jim was very active in his Kensington community, in Trinity Methodist Church, and with his children, participating with the Boy Scouts and the Indian Guides.

He will be remembered for his strong ethical sense, his generosity and kindness, his wit and easy-going manner, and his love for the English language, for birds and flowers, and for his friends and his family.

A memorial service will be held for him on Saturday, March 23, at 2 p.m. at Trinity Methodist Chapel in Berkeley on Dana St., between Bancroft and Durant.