Samuel Joshua Silverman (25 September 1908 – 6 March 2001) was a three time

New York State Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the superior court in the Judiciary of New York. It is vested with unlimited civil and criminal jurisdiction, although in many counties outside New York City it acts primarily as a court of civil ju ...

Justice and career litigator who was involved in several high-profile cases

Background and early career

Born in

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

(part of Russia at the time), his parents immigrated to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

while he was still a toddler. Silverman graduated from with distinction from Columbia College in 1928, and earned his

law degree A law degree is an academic degree conferred for studies in law. Some law degrees are professional degrees that are prerequisites or serve as preparation for legal careers. These generally include the Bachelor of Civil Law, Bachelor of Laws, an ...

from

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (CLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Columbia University, a Private university, private Ivy League university in New York City. The school was founded in 1858 as the Columbia College Law School. The un ...

in 1930. Soon he became an assistant

corporation counsel The corporation counsel is the title given to the chief legal officer who handles civil claims against the city in some U.S. municipal and county jurisdictions, including negotiating settlements and defending the city when it is sued. Most corp ...

for

's government. Shortly thereafter he became a partner at a firm that would become

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (known as Paul, Weiss) is an American multinational white-shoe law firm headquartered in New York City. Paul, Weiss's core practice areas are in litigation and corporate law. The firm has histori ...

. During his tenure Silverman represented Dr.

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World ...

, the

nuclear physicist Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

, at a 1954 loyalty hearing conducted by a panel of the Atomic Energy Commission. Later, Silverman represented

Otto Frank Otto Heinrich Frank (12 May 1889 – 19 August 1980) was a German businessman, and the father of Anne Frank. He edited and published the first edition of her diary in 1947 (subsequently known in English as ''The Diary of a Young Girl'') and adv ...

, the father of

Anne Frank Annelies Marie Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – February or March 1945)Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new li ...

, in a lawsuit over a proposed stage adaptation of the famous ''

Diary of Anne Frank ''The Diary of a Young Girl'', commonly referred to as ''The Diary of Anne Frank'', is a book of the writings from the Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of t ...

''.

Later career

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (Cyprus) (DCY) **Democratic Part ...

, Silverman was elected to state supreme court in 1962. He served there for four years before in 1966 becoming involved in a highly-public campaign with then-

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also known as RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. He served as the 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New Yo ...

, egged on by

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...

leader Alex Rose, to end

patronage Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, art patronage refers to the support that princes, popes, and other wealthy and influential people ...

corruption in New York's

Surrogate Court A probate court (sometimes called a surrogate court) is a court that has competence in a jurisdiction to deal with matters of probate and the administration of estates. In some jurisdictions, such courts may be referred to as orphans' courts o ...

. Specifically, members of the Democratic and Republican parties were cross endorsing each other's candidates for the court in order to promote individuals who would skim commission from inheritance cases and introduce some of these funds back into the political machine. ("Don't die in the city of New York, don't die--if you want to leave anything to your wife and children," Kennedy exhorted.) Silverman won in a landslide, but his efforts at reform were hindered. In a 1967 constitutional convention Silverman's core proposal to abolish the surrogate court and reassign its jurisdiction to a rotation group of state supreme court justices was defeated. Silverman retired in 1971 from the surrogate court and returned to the state supreme court, frustrated by boredom, and reform failures, particularly frustrated with his hard-line senior colleague S. Samuel DiFalco (who was indicted for corruption charges in 1978, but died before the trial). Silverman was promoted to the Appellate Division in 1976. He remained at the state supreme court until he retired in 1984, when he returned as senior counsel for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Silverman died at aged 92 at the Weill Cornell Medical Center of

New York-Presbyterian Hospital The NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (abbreviated as NYP) is a nonprofit academic medical center in New York City. It is the primary teaching hospital for Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. The hospit ...

Sources

New York Times Obituaries, March 11, 2001
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20121102175036/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,835926,00.html?promoid=googlep The Making of the Surrogate, July 8, 1966*''Robert Kennedy and His Times'' by

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. ( ; born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Silverman, Samuel Joshua 1908 births 2001 deaths New York (state) lawyers Columbia Law School alumni Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison people Columbia College (New York) alumni 20th-century American lawyers Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department justices