David J.Hickton, Professor, University of Pittsburgh
David J. Hickton founded the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security in 2017. Hickton also has faculty appointments as professor in the School of Law, the School of Computing and Information, and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
Hickton served as staff director and senior counsel to the House Select
Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis from May 2020 – June 2021.
Prior to coming to Pitt, Hickton served as United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. He was nominated by former President Barack Obama on May 20, 2010, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Aug. 5, 2010. He was sworn in as the District’s 57th U.S. Attorney in August 2010 and served through November 2016.
Hickton previously engaged in the private practice of law, specifically in the areas of transportation, litigation, commercial and white-collar crime. He began his legal career serving as a law clerk for the Honorable U. S. District Judge Gustave Diamond from 1981 to 1983. For more than a decade, Hickton was an adjunct professor at the Duquesne University School of Law, where he taught antitrust.
A fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County, Hickton has been admitted before numerous courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. At the request of President Bill Clinton, he previously served on the President’s Advisory Committee
on the Arts for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Hickton has long been a staunch supporter of many civic organizations, including those that benefit children and the arts. He served as an executive board member and president of Pittsburgh Public Theater and was a member of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.
Hickton currently serves as the managing trustee of the National Opioid Abatement Trust II; as well as a non-resident senior advisor at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
Mr. Hickton is a 1978 graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and a 1981 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
In 2016, Pitt’s School of Law named Hickton one of its Distinguished Alumni. That same year, The Legal Intelligencer named him Pennsylvania Attorney of the Year. Hickton and his wife, Dawne, have been generous supporters of Pitt in several projects, including helping to establish the Loren H. Roth, MD, Summer Research Program in the School of Medicine. Pitt recognized Hickton as a Legacy Laureate in
2013 and that year presented him with its 225th anniversary medallion, an honor bestowed on alumni who have brought particular honor to the university through their work and service.