Malcolm Richard Wilkey

Wilkey's official portrait at the Department of Justice

Wilkey with President Ronald Reagan in 1986

Wilkey was in private practice in Houston, Texas, from 1948 to 1954, also teaching at the University of Houston Law Center from 1949 to 1954. Wilkey entered public service in Texas as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas (1954–1958). In 1958 he moved to Washington, D.C., to serve as the United States Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel at the United States Department of Justice (1958–1959), and Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division (1959–1961). He returned to private practice in Texas (1961–1963), before moving on to become the General counsel and secretary of Kennecott Copper Corporation (1963–1970), during which he was also a member of the Advisory Panel on International Law for the legal adviser at the United States Department of State (1969–1973).

Wilkey was nominated by President Richard Nixon on February 16, 1970, for the seat vacated by Judge Warren E. Burger on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 24, 1970, and received his commission the following day.[2] He assumed senior status on December 6, 1984, and his judicial service ended November 8, 1985, when he retired and went to Cambridge University as a visiting fellow of Wolfson College.[3]

In 1989 he was chairman of the President's Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform and worked alongside his Vice Chairman Griffin B. Bell, who was the United States Attorney General under President Jimmy Carter.[4]

President Ronald Reagan appointed him United States Ambassador to Uruguay in 1985, and President George H. W. Bush continued him in that post[3] until his retirement in 1990.[5]

In 1992 United States Attorney General William P. Barr appointed him to determine whether federal criminal violations had taken place in the House banking scandal.[4]