Bond attorney Griffith "Grif" F. Pitcher, who wrote extensively about municipal finance, died April 23 following a short illness. He was 75.
A memorial service is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday at the Carmichael Funeral Home in Smyrna, Ga.
Mr. Pitcher practiced tax and bond law since 1963, most recently with Seyfarth Shaw LLP in Atlanta.
"He had a deep and commanding voice," recalled Parkhill Mays Jr., a partner with Holland & Knight LLP, who had known Mr. Pitcher since the 1970's. "He had a thirst for knowledge and novel approaches he liked to debate.
"I liked Grif. He was always friendly and helpful."
He was very active in bond-related organizations.
As a founding fellow of the American College of Bond Counsel and member since 1995, he also served as treasurer, director, and website editor.
Mr. Pitcher was a member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers and was awarded the Carlson Prize for most scholarly article in the Bond Lawyer journal in 2000. The article was entitled "When Might Bond-Financed Real or Personal Property Be Subject to Yield Restrictions."
A frequent speaker and panelist for NABL, he also served on the Bond Attorneys Workshop Faculty for 22 years and the Bond Attorney's Winter Workshop.
Mr. Pitcher also spoke to numerous municipal and professional organizations, and authored articles in the Municipal Finance Journal, Taxes, Taxation for Lawyers, Taxation for Accountants, Digest of Tax Articles, the Virginia Law Review, the ABA Journal, and the Florida Bar Journal.
He was a member of the American Bar Association, the Florida Bar, the Georgia State Bar, and the Alabama Bar. He was also a member of the national Legal Honors Society's Order of the Coif. He was listed in Oxford's Who's Who, Marquis Who's Who, Who's Who in American Law, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the World.
Mr. Pitcher graduated from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the University of Virginia law school.
He is survived by his wife Donna Walker Pitcher; four children from his first marriage, Virginia Tyson Ballinger, Lawrence Brooke Fick, William Terry Badham Pitcher, and Margaret Wadsworth Nichols; step daughter Pamela Pinkard; sister Lawrence Platt Hall; and eight grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, his family requests that donations be made to the American Cancer Society.
