Law Review

As a military intelligence officer in the Mekong River Delta region of Vietnam in the late 1960s, where U.S. forces battled both the North Vietnamese Army and the Vietcong, Chris Walters had no trouble identifying enemy soldiers. They were the ones who were shooting at you. It was Walters' job to find out where the enemy stored munitions, what they had in the way of defenses, and what their battlefield plans were. The people Walters interrogated had been picked up following shoot-outs or had been pulled out of bunkers stuffed with weapons.

Harris Ominsky, 77, of Merion Station, a lawyer and educator, died of bile duct cancer Monday, Aug. 16, at home. Mr. Ominsky was a partner with the firm of Blank Rome in Philadelphia for 35 years. An expert on real estate acquisitions, financing, and construction, he cochaired Blank Rome's real estate department for many years. He was a lecturer, course planner, and past president of the Philadelphia Bar Institute, the educational arm of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. In 1988, he was the recipient of the Harrison Tweed Special Merit Award from the American Law Institute for his "exceptional contributions" to continuing education for lawyers.

It has become a disturbingly familiar workplace scenario, statistically rare, but occurring often enough to have a ritualistic feel. A head-case employee, after a series of run-ins with managers, decides to even the score. He - and it almost always is a he - storms the factory floor, guns ablaze, leaving a string of bodies in his wake. Such was the case last week near Hartford, Conn., when an employee at a beer distributor, caught on videotape by a private investigator stealing beer from his delivery truck, reached into his lunch pail for two 9mm handguns, and shot 10 of his coworkers, killing eight, before taking his own life.

Regina "Jeanne" Ward Ryan, 77, of Narberth, a lawyer who was the first woman to graduate from Villanova University School of Law, died of complications from emphysema Monday, June 28, at Wayne Center, a nursing and rehabilitation facility. Mrs. Ryan grew up in Merion. She graduated from Gwynedd Mercy Academy in three years and then earned a bachelor's degree from Rosemont College. In September 1953, she began classes at the new Villanova University School of Law with two other women and 65 men, many of whom were returning Korean War veterans.

Laura Brank wanted to do something different growing up in suburban Connecticut, so she told her parents one day she would enlist and earn her undergraduate degree overseas while serving in the Army, instead of taking the traditional route and going straight to college. Her parents were not pleased. But Brank was undeterred. She followed through on her plan and, while in the Army, earned her degree in Eastern European studies at the Munich campus of the University of Maryland, which serves diplomatic and military personnel overseas.

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.

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.

ONE person's Great American Success Story is another's irrelevant footnote. All depends on who's telling the tale. Example: Child of Latino immigrants overcomes adversity, works hard, makes it to the Ivy League, then the law review and rises to the highest echelons of the legal profession. Child-turned-accomplished adult gets tapped for a prestigious federal judgeship. And Democrats wage a bitter battle against the nomination, up to and including the rarely used filibuster.

John F. Cramp, 86, a Media lawyer active in Republican politics, died of heart failure April 25 at Naples Community Hospital in Naples, Fla., where he had lived since the mid-1990s. In 1957, when Mr. Cramp was 34, he was elected chairman of the executive committee of the Republican Party in Delaware County. He had been founding president of the Young Republican Club of Springfield and in 1956 chaired the county's committee to reelect President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mr. Cramp stepped down as party chief in 1960 but remained involved in politics for the rest of his life, his son John Jr. said.

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.