Tuesday, July 25, 2006
By: Gina Passarella and Asher Hawkins
Former bar chancellor and prominent trial lawyer Arthur G. Raynes has died at the age of 72.
Mr. Raynes had been suffering from lung cancer for the past six months, but many who were close to him said that his death was unexpected.
Philadelphia Bar Association Executive Director Kenneth Shear said a number of people had known he was ill but thought he was recovering.
“We thought he was on his way to beating this,” he said. “It’s been tough.” Robert C. Heim of Dechert became friends with Mr. Raynes in 1990 when he was chancellor and Heim was chancellor-elect of the Philadelphia Bar Association.
“I have so many wonderful memories of his morning calls to me,” Heim said. “I would laugh because it was like my alarm clock.”
Laugh is just what Mr. Raynes seemed to make others do. Heim said he used to tell Mr. Raynes that if he wasn’t a lawyer, he could have been a stand-up comedian.
“He had a very quick wit with this droll delivery,” Heim said, but added that there was a passion along with his humor.
“I said to Ken Shear,” ‘There’ll always only be one Arthur for me,’” Heim said. “‘When I hear the word Arthur, it’s Arthur Raynes.’”
Most of those who spoke to The Legal about Mr. Raynes said that his speeches and roasts were always anticipated because of his humor.
Allan Gordon of Kolsby Gordon Robin Shore & Bezar had known Mr. Raynes for more than 40 years and said that he probably had the best sense of humor and overall was just a “sweet guy.”
Mr. Raynes, founder and senior partner of the Philadelphia law firm of Raynes McCarty, represented high profile and catastrophically injured clients for more than 45 years.
He was perhaps best known for his 17-year representation of more than 50 Canadian and American children who were born with severe birth defects in the 1960s as a result of their mothers’ ingestion of the drug thalidomide during pregnancy.
“He became a hero in Canada where a lot of [affected people] were from,” Gordon said. Some of the other noteworthy cases that Mr. Raynes successfully handled was his representation of the estate of Jessica Savitch, the NBC national news anchor who drowned in an automobile accident in New Hope, PA; his representation of the families of 46 oil riggers who were killed in a Boeing Chinook helicopter accident at an oil rig off the coast of Scotland; and his representation of 1,354 Spanish HIV-infected hemophiliacs and their families who contracted HIV as a result of defective blood products.
Mr. Raynes served as co-counsel negotiating the largest wrongful death settlement from a private person in U.S. history for the family of the Olympic wrestler David Schultz who was murdered by John E. DuPont.
“He was the penultimate Philadelphia lawyer,” friend Howard Gittis, vice president of McAndrews & Forbes Holdings, said. “He never wanted to be anything else.”
Gittis met Mr. Raynes in 1960 at the 3rd Circuit Judicial Conference and said they became fast friends. He said that not only was Mr. Raynes a great trial lawyer, but he was very adept at putting together his presentations for the jury.
Arthur was an absolute master of orchestrating and pulling all of that together,” Cozen O’Connor chairman Stephen A. Cozen said. Cozen said he got to know Mr. Raynes through his stature in the community, and eventually they appeared against each other in various cases. He said that no one ever had anything negative to say about Mr. Raynes.
“Arthur Raynes is a legend.” Cozen said. “He is the absolute epitome of what everyone should be: intellectually brilliant, articulate, [with a] great sense of humor and even a greater sense of humanity.”
Richard Sprague of Sprague & Sprague met Mr. Raynes as his opposing counsel in a case that he described as a “battle royale.”
It’s not too often that when lawyers bitterly fight one another that they recognize the skills and the decency of an opposing lawyer,” Sprague said.
Alan Feldman, current chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, started his 10-year span working with Mr. Raynes in 1977 when the firm was Raynes McCarty & Binder. Feldman said that when Mr. Raynes heard that Feldman and his wife never went on a honeymoon, he paid for them to take a trip to the Dominican Republic.
He said Mr. Raynes was like a father to him. Others in the community had equally strong feelings concerning Mr. Raynes.
“He was the most charming man I ever met,” Shear said. ‘He knew what he wanted, but he told you in such a gentle way - - he was gentle in the best sense of the word, a gentleman.” Gerald A. McHugh, Jr. of Raynes McCarty was co-counsel with Mr. Raynes on the David Schultz case.
“He was one of my role models,” McHugh said. “Art was a giant of the trial bar and not just because of his ability but because of his integrity and generosity.”
Many pointed to Mr. Raynes’ dedication not only to the legal profession, but his family.
“Notwithstanding his professional accomplishments, he was a family man first and foremost;” his son and colleague Stephen Raynes said. “Anyone who came to his office, or who knew him, knew that he was a grandfather, a Poppy, husband and father before anything else.”
Mr. Raynes was a fellow and board member of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and member of the American Board of Trial Advocates.
In 2004, the International Academy of Trial Lawyers featured him in its book, History of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers: Legends, along with only 33 other lawyers from around the world.
Mr. Raynes graduated from Duke University in 1956 and received his law degree from Temple University School of Law in 1959. At Duke University, Mr. Raynes was a catcher on the baseball team and a goalie on the soccer team.
He also served on the board of directors of the YMCA, the Philadelphia Heart Institute, the Philadelphia Geriatrics Center, Moss Rehabilitation Hospital, the Ronald McDonald House, Children’s Hospital, the Lawyer’s Division of the Federation of Jewish Agencies and the Jewish Publication Society.
He served as a faculty member of Temple University’s Beasley School of Law’s master’s degree program in trial advocacy and has a lecture hall there named after him.
Mr. Raynes is survived by his wife of 47 years, Diane; his children, Nancy Dubow, Michael Raynes, Stephen Raynes and Lizabeth Raynes; and his four grandchildren, David Dubow, Alex Dubow, Lily Ann Raynes and Katie Raynes. He is also survived by his sister Judith Bernstein.