(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Supreme Court Justice David Souter, momentarily choked with emotion, bid an affectionate farewell Tuesday to judges and lawyers he has worked with for nearly two decades.

Souter spoke at an annual conference of judges and lawyers from Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Souter handles matters that come to the Supreme Court from those states. The 69-year-old justice announced last Friday that he will retire when the court finishes its work for the summer and return to his home in New Hampshire.

Momentarily dropping his New England reserve, the justice appeared to choke up as he recalled asking his predecessor, William Brennan, if he wanted to send a message to the same group when Souter was preparing to attend his first conference in Teaneck, N.J.

“Just give them my love, David. Just give them my love,” Souter remembered. “That goes for me, too.”

He received sustained standing ovations before and after his 15-minute talk, and was introduced by Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as a “beloved member of the 3rd Circuit family.”

Souter said he had not intended for the news of his retirement to break before Tuesday’s event. “I swear to you I was not the leak,” he said.

Still, he said, “It’s impossible not to be doing a mental reckoning of some sort.”

He gave a lighthearted account of the first conference after he joined the court in 1990, noting that he apparently was viewed with some suspicion by the 3rd Circuit. Among the reading material he was given when he arrived at that first conference was a copy of the Constitution.

Souter thanked Scirica for not including the Constitution for this visit. “He may have assumed that it’s too late now,” Souter said.

Souter said members of the legal profession should take satisfaction in doing “something worth doing” and trying “to do it well.”

He did not permit cameras or audio recordings at his speech Tuesday.

In Washington, the White House said that President Barack Obama will not be announcing his choice to replace Souter this week.

Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs ruled out that time frame when asked about published comments of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Hatch, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had been quoted as saying that he would be surprised if Obama’s announcement of a nominee did not happen this week.

Said Gibbs flatly: “It’s not going to happen this week.”

Hatch and Obama spoke Monday about the president’s process for announcing a nominee for Souter’s seat.

Obama wants to have his eventual nominee confirmed and in place for the Supreme Court session that will begin in October.