Fox Rothschild lawyer dies at 104; he was still practicing law
Photo of Murray Shusterman from Fox Rothschild.
A senior counsel at Fox Rothschild who rejected the idea of retirement died on Monday at the age of 104.
Murray Shusterman began practicing law in 1936 and continued to practice at the Philadelphia law firm that he had joined in 1969, report the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Legal Intelligencer (sub. req.). Until recently, he was also an adjunct professor at Temple University School of Law, where he taught corporate and real estate law, according to a law firm biography.
Fox Rothschild was “deeply saddened by the loss of our long-time treasured partner, colleague and friend,” the firm said in a statement on Shusterman’s bio page. “Murray was a legend in the law not only in the Philadelphia region but nationally as he garnered attention in recent years as one of a handful of centenarian attorneys in the United States who continued to practice law.”
Though Shusterman continued to practice law, he had reduced his schedule a few years ago to several days a week. Firmwide managing partner Mark Silow told the Legal Intelligencer in an email that Shusterman “had an active mind and was always curious about politics, business and the law, literally right up to the moment he passed away.”
Shusterman was born in the Ukraine and came to the United States with his parents as a youth. Silow said Shusterman could recount the fear of his parents as they fled religious persecution, and he was generous with wealth he had gained as a real estate investor.
He had trouble finding work when he first graduated from Temple University, however. He told the American Lawyer last year that he worked as a local lawyer without pay for the first six months of his career.
Shusterman told the Philadelphia Inquirer in a 2014 interview that he had no plans to give up law practice. “What? Retire? Sit in a rocking chair and wait to die?” he told the newspaper.
