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The Oldest Lawyer?

The Boston Globe reports the death of Reuben Landau, who at 103 was believed to be the oldest practicing lawyer in Massachusetts. Before he became ill three weeks ago, Mr. Landau was still putting in a few hours a day from his Cambridge home. Three years ago, his lawyer-son Bill Landau, then in his early 70s, tried to convince his father that they both should retire, but Mr. Landau would have nothing of it. The Globe recounts what Bill told The New York Times in an interview at the time:

"'Dad, let's retire,' I tell him," Bill Landau said in a 2004 interview with The New York Times. "But he says, 'What would I doooooo?' Just like that. 'Doooooo.' How do you say no to a 100-year-old man? You can't."

No one in Massachusetts could say unequivocally that Mr. Landau was the oldest practicing lawyer in the state, but no one disputed it either. This led me to wonder: If Reuben Landau was the oldest practicing lawyer in his state, who is the oldest practicing lawyer in the United States? I searched Google for the answer, but without success. I did find this interesting New York Times article from 1899 noting that New York's oldest lawyer had returned to active practice at age 95 following an illness. The Times noted that he "fully retains his mental faculties" -- more than can be said of many much-younger lawyers. His death must have come soon after, because five years later the Times reported the death of New York's then-oldest lawyer, James P. Sanders, at 86. Tragically, he died not from old age but from asphyxiation due to a gas leak in his home. I also found this 2003 article from the Denver Bar Association speculating that Joe Berenbaum was Colorado's oldest practicing lawyer. Old? Heck, he was only 87 at the time. And there was this great 1927 news article from Wisconsin describing the U.S. Supreme Court appearance of 93-year-old Moses Hooper of Oshkosh, who stepped forward to present his argument before 87-year-old Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

But I was not, via Google, able to identify the oldest lawyer in the United States. So I turn to you, the blog-reading public. Can anyone out there help me with this?

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on October 24, 2007 at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Comments

Bernard Gartlir, who was editor in chief of The Cornell Daily Sun in 1937-38, is still practising law at Hofheimer Gartlir & Gross in New York City, www.HGG.com.

Posted by: Stan Chess | Oct 24, 2007 3:49:21 PM

More interesting from my perspective than who is the oldest practicing attorney, is who is the oldest full time practicing attorney. I know an attorneys who is 84 and full time doesn't cover it. Practicing a few hours of law a week is a different thing entirely. In other professions it would be considered retirement.

Posted by: quick question | Oct 24, 2007 4:10:17 PM

Even older is my cousin's cousin: David Deutsch, still practising in New York. He completed NYU Law in 1927.

Posted by: Stan Chess | Oct 24, 2007 10:33:12 PM

Correction: David Deutsch was admitted to the New York bar in 1927.

Posted by: Stan Chess | Oct 24, 2007 11:33:47 PM

From Wiki. Not sure if he is still alive but I cannot find an article on his death and this wiki was updated in July 2007.

If he is still alive....Happy Belated Birthday!

C. Yardley Chittick (born October 22, 1900 in Newark, New Jersey) has for several years been the oldest living patent attorney in the United States. Yardley is also the oldest living member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

Chittick is a graduate of Phillips Academy (where he quarreled with Humphrey Bogart) and MIT, although he did not graduate from high school. [1] [2] While a student at MIT, he was elected captain of the one-mile relay track team. [3] Chittick was once offered a job by Thomas Edison but turned it down. Chittick became registered as a patent attorney on February 1, 1934. [4] He was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court on September 20, 1950. [5]

He was married twice and had two sons. [6] His first marriage ended in divorce, which involved a lawsuit that went to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court based on a dispute over a complex settlement and the validity of a divorce filed in the U.S. Virgin Islands. [7]

Chittick was the first recipient of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity's Beta Centenarian award in 2003. He attends the annual Beta Theta Pi convention and is annually honored for his lifetime achievement, regularly taking the podium to sing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fight song "Take Me Back to Tech".

Chittick now lives at the Pleasant View Retirement Community in Concord, New Hampshire, adjacent to St. Paul's School. He makes occasional appearances at the nearby Franklin Pierce Law Center, which is recognized for its strong patent program, and which awarded Chittick an honorary degree in 2005.

Posted by: Nick Santella | Oct 25, 2007 8:16:51 AM

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