His family held his service at the previously popular Universal Funeral Chapel, Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street, New York City, Wednesday, the 22nd at 8:00 p.m.  John Jay McKelvey graduated from Sandusky High School, Ohio, with first honors during June 1880 and entered Oberlin College during September 1880, where he completed his undergraduate classical studies, June 1884, earning an A.B. degree. Oberlin's writing guild and its oratory society, wherein he excelled, helped prepare him for ten hour days of studying law, moot court, and the Socratic Method at Harvard, where he began during the autumn of 1884. By June 1887 he had graduated from Harvard with an A.M. degree from the College Department and a L.L.B. degree from the Law Department and cum laude credentials. With further distinction, John Jay McKelvey founded the "Harvard Law Review" and served as its first editor-in-chief, during 1887. To take the law review from idea to print, Chief McKelvey convinced law society mates to join his mission, and his intimate nucleus gaged the backing of Harvard professors and solicited subscription support from alumni. With proper organization and logistics, the review went to press, and Chief McKelvey bolstered the "Harvard Law Review" success, by lobbying his circle of influence, including the Oberlin contingency and Harvard alumni of Boston and New York City. Salesman, spokesman, organizer, chief, McKelvey essentially encouraged other law-truth-seekers to buy into the value of establishing the "Harvard Law Review". Admitted to the New York bar during 1888, initially John J. McKelvey began to practice law at 10 Wall Street in New York City, with Albert Stickney, Esquire and Edward Morse Shepard, Esquire of Stickney & Shepard, at the top of his bar history; after which, during 1889 John J. associated with DeLancey Nicoll, Esquire. From 1890 to 1894, John J. worked as a solo practitioner at 45 William Street—the same office complex shared by then Grover Cleveland. Between 1894 and 1895, John J. joined the law firm of Shepard, Terry, McKelvey, & Prentiss—a short-lived partnership, though fellow Harvard Law alumni Seth Sprague Terry would subsequently serve John J. as his counsel. John J. returned to practicing law alone, between 1895 and 1899. With his brother-in-law Frederick W. Mattocks, John J. formed his second longest partnership, primarily practicing realty law from 1899 to 1906 at 66 Broadway.