Estelle A. Fishbein, who was general counsel at the Johns Hopkins University for nearly three decades, died Dec. 2 of complications from dementia at the Residence at Bala-Cynwyd in Pennsylvania. The former Lutherville resident was 89.
“Estelle was well-regarded for her intelligence and her ability to work through any crisis and with the federal government,” said Eugene F. “Gene” Sunshine, former CEO and senior vice president for finance and administration at Hopkins.
“She was an institution at Hopkins and a spectacular human being anyway you define it, as general counsel, a friend, or for her all-around other many skills,” Mr. Sunshine said.
Derek Savage, who was deputy general counsel at Hopkins, worked with Ms. Fishbein for nearly two decades.
“She was one of the leading lights of the higher education bar,” Mr. Savage said. “She was a fierce advocate and defender of the university and you didn’t want to oppose her if you were on the other side.”
Born in the Bronx, New York, Estelle Ackerman, was the daughter of immigrants from Bessarabia in Eastern Europe. Her father, Joseph Ackerman, was a fur finisher, and her mother, Katie Ackerman, worked alongside her husband in his small shop on West 33rd Street in Manhattan.
She grew up in the Bronx and was 16 when she graduated from the old James Monroe High School.
After she earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1955 from Hunter College she obtained her law degree in 1958 from Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut.
“I decided to become a lawyer because I felt strongly about civil rights, racial and religious discrimination in our society, and the problems of the poor,” Ms. Fishbein wrote in an autobiographical sketch.
“I was very idealistic and thought as a lawyer I could best contribute to bring about a more just society. I think that for me it indeed was a calling inspired in part by my following current events and reading, always reading,” she wrote. “I was completely ignorant about how difficult it would be for a woman to find a job as a lawyer.”
While at Yale, she met and fell in love with Ronald H. Fishbein, a student at Yale University School of Medicine. They married in 1956.
“There were only 12 women in my class of 150 and generally they were my closest friends,” she wrote. “Unlike many of the top law schools, Yale did not bar women from admission to the law school and women had been admitted since the early 20th century although in small numbers because few women were interested in becoming lawyers.”
Ms. Fishbein, who was admitted to both the D.C. and Maryland bar, began her legal career in 1958 as a staff attorney with the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in the office of general counsel, old age and survivors insurance division.
In 1965, she was named senior staff attorney in the office of general counsel in HEW’s health insurance division, more familiarly known as Medicare.
After leaving HEW in 1968, she was the special assistant attorney general for the University of Maryland, College Park, until being appointed general counsel at Hopkins in 1975.
In addition to her role as general counsel, in 1991 she was promoted to vice president.
“I was appointed the first general counsel of the Johns Hopkins University in 1975,” she wrote. “The 28 years I spent as that university’s general counsel and vice president were the most challenging and fulfilling of my career.”
Ms. Fishbein combined her legal adroitness with a keen sense of humor.
“She was very warm and personable and quite a character,” Mr. Savage said. “Suddenly, she’d break into a tap dance in the office or start singing songs. She loved doing that.”
Once, Mr. Savage was called into her office where she critiqued his style of dress.
“I was wearing Jos A. Bank suits and she had an article from The New York Times in her hand, about successful lawyers who spent several thousand dollars on Armani designer suits, and suggested that I do the same,” Mr. Savage said. “I said, ‘When you start paying me an Armani salary, I’ll start wearing Armani suits,’ and she burst into laughter.”
Ms. Fishbein’s courtroom demeanor was something else, however.
“She was the most articulate and smartest person I’ve ever known and was just terrific in a courtroom setting,” Mr. Savage said. “She wrote the legal briefs involving the federal government when they were investigating us for one thing or the other.”
During the war in Grenada, the medical school there closed forcing students from the United States to seek admission to medical schools elsewhere.
“The federal government wanted to help them and were just going to place them in U.S. medical schools, including Hopkins,” Mr. Savage said. “We went to court and Estelle said the federal government had no such right and that it was not appropriate that Hopkins had to take them in. However, they could apply for admission. She clocked the government and they backed off.”
Mr. Sunshine said: “Estelle was incredibly smart, industrious and qualified when it came to dealing with any crisis or the federal government. She was tenacious and her role was extraordinary when it came to running a major research university, which Hopkins is with its many schools.”
Ms. Fishbein had to deal with a variety of complex issues during her tenure at Hopkins such as “civil rights, Title 9, animal use in testing, human subjects, health and safety and HIPAA,” according to a 2005 article in the JHU Gazette.
“We had many challenges and Hopkins is filled with smart people who always think they’re right,” Mr. Sunshine said, with a laugh. “We had challenges with Congress and there were management issues, but she helped us get through them. People enjoyed working with Estelle, even the federal government, because she was so smart and pleasant, and she was good at hiring good people in her office.”
When tensions were running high, Ms. Fishbein exuded a sense of control.
“She could calm people down. She’d say, ‘Take a deep breath and we’ll start out again,'” Mr. Sunshine said.
Ms. Fishbein was a member and office holder in the National Association of College and University Attorneys and was named its first woman president in 1980.
She retired from Hopkins in 2004 and moved to Naples, Florida, with her husband, a retired surgeon, who died in 2015. In 2019, she moved to Gladwyne, Pennsylvania.
Ms. Fishbein, an avid reader of the law and history, enjoyed baking, the opera, the perpetuation of the Yiddish language and “spoiling” her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, family members said.
She was a member of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.
Services were held Wednesday at Sol Levinson & Bros. in Pikesville.
She is survived by two sons, Rand Fishbein, of Potomac, and Jonathan Fishbein, of Gladwyne; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
"general" - Google News
December 10, 2023 at 05:03PM
https://ift.tt/Qv49z8d
Estelle A. Fishbein, general counsel for the Johns Hopkins University for nearly 30 years, dies - Baltimore Sun
"general" - Google News
https://ift.tt/m7Vr2sM
https://ift.tt/EzQ8xUi
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Estelle A. Fishbein, general counsel for the Johns Hopkins University for nearly 30 years, dies - Baltimore Sun"
Post a Comment