Law Review

Gardner A. Evans, 77, a supermarket clerk in high school and college who became a partner in the Philadelphia law firm that is now Ballard Spahr, died of Parkinson's disease Feb. 8 at Rydal Park in Abington. He had lived in Jenkintown from 1977 until moving to Rydal Park four months ago. Several years of stocking shelves and working cash registers at Acme Markets helped pay for his undergraduate education, said his daughter, Jennifer Stacey. "He worked at Acme 40 hours a week through high school and through college," she said.

Thomas E. Byrne III, 69, of Gladwyne, a retired lawyer, died of melanoma March 16 at home. Mr. Byrne grew up in Merion Station. He spent summers at his family's farm in Phoenixville, where his Irish ancestor Thomas F. Byrne settled in the 1850s and later established a successful knitting mill. After graduating from Malvern Preparatory School, Mr. Byrne earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a law degree from Villanova University and was a member of the Law Review.

Eric W. Stein has been appointed assistant professor of management information systems at Pennsylvania State University Great Valley, where he is a full-time faculty member for the graduate program in management. Stein's research interests include information flow in organizations, organizational communication and decision support for environmental policy- making. Before joining Penn State, Stein performed applied research and provided strategic-planning services through the Wharton Center for Applied Research and his own company.

William S. Stevens, 60, of Narberth, an attorney, educator, sportsman, and writer who penned a celebrated article about the relationship between baseball and common law, died Dec. 3 of a heart attack in his apartment in Anchorage, Alaska, where he was working. Mr. Stevens was a third-year law student at the University of Pennsylvania in 1975 when he wrote a humorous, unsigned "aside" - "The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule" - for Penn's law review. The infield-fly rule was adopted in the 1890s to prevent infielders from intentionally misplaying a fly ball in hopes of recording a double play.

Services will be held tomorrow for Miriam L. Gafni, prominent Philadelphia labor lawyer who was active in the business and civic community. Gafni, 53, was killed in an automobile accident Thursday in Israel, where she was director of the Project for Advancement of Tourism in the Galil for the Jewish Agency for Israel. Gafni, until last year a member of the firm of Freedman & Lorry, was a nationally known expert in labor and employment law for more than 25 years, representing unions and handling landmark cases in employment discrimination.

South Philadelphia native Myer "Mike" Feldman, 92, a key adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson who had a knack for avoiding personal publicity, died of heart disease Thursday at Suburban Hospital in Washington. "Mike is an unsung hero. He never sought headlines," said Theodore C. Sorensen, who was special White House counsel for Kennedy, on Friday. Mr. Feldman, who was known as a smart, tough policy and legal adviser, prepped Kennedy for the televised debates with Richard Nixon.

Sylvan M. Cohen, 87, who in 1960 founded one of the nation's first real estate investment trusts, died of heart failure Saturday at his home in Center City. Mr. Cohen was at his death the chairman of the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, which owns or manages property in 10 states. Until it closed in 1995, he was chairman of Cohen, Shapiro, Polisher, Shiekman & Cohen, a Philadelphia law firm. And he was a founder and former president of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Sidney Wanning Frick, 81, of Penn Valley, a patent attorney and former president of the Barnes Foundation in Merion, died of congestive heart failure Saturday at Waverly Heights in Gladwyne. Mr. Frick was appointed to the five-member Board of Trustees of the billion-dollar art collection in 1957 and served as president from 1967 to 1989, when he retired. In 1961, the foundation was forced to hold regular visiting hours for the public after the state attorney general filed suit.

Former Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Daniel L. Quinlan, 70, who served as a judge from 1961 to 1964 and then returned to the practice of law, died Friday at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Mr. Quinlan's clients included a Norristown man accused of killing five elderly people the defendant believed were responsible for his mother's mental illness, and Mr. Quinlan argued one legal issue in the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. "He was quite proud of that," said lawyer and friend Mark Ryan, who got his first job fresh out of law school in 1980 working for Mr. Quinlan, who was then winding down his law practice before retiring in 1982.

B. William Hildenbrand III, 66, of Jenkintown, a music director and borough councilman, died of lung cancer Friday at Keystone Hospice in Wyndmoor. Mr. Hildenbrand was a Jenkintown councilman from 1994 to 2000. He was again elected in 2007 and served until becoming ill last year. For 33 years, he directed church music programs, including at Eddington Presbyterian Church in Bensalem; Scottsville United Methodist Church in Langhorne; and, since 1984, Jenkintown United Methodist Church.