Maria Lenhoff Marcus's father Arthur was a member of the Austrian Constitutional Court. After the court ruled against the Nazis in 1938 he had to flee with his family. Maria, five, skied from an Austrian mountain top to freedom in neutral Switzerland. Her father became a law professor at the University of Buffalo. - GWC
By Sam Roberts
Maria Marcus, a law professor who as a public interest lawyer defended civil rights in the South and successfully argued six cases before the United States Supreme Court representing New York State, in one instance winning unemployment benefits for striking workers, died on April 27 at her home in Manhattan. She was 88.
Her death was confirmed by her daughter Valerie Marcus.
Professor Marcus argued the cases before the Supreme Court representing the New York attorney general. She was an assistant attorney general from 1967 to 1978 and chief of the office’s litigation bureau from 1976 to 1978.
In early 1979, the court agreed, 6-to-3, in New York Telephone v. New York State Department of Labor, that the state was empowered to require companies to pay unemployment benefits to striking workers. (Professor Marcus argued the case in 1978.)
The justices rejected the argument by the phone company that because the law implicitly favored labor over management, it had to yield to federal labor laws calling for governmental neutrality. In its ruling, the court affirmed an appellate court’s decision that held that even though the law placed the state on the side of labor during a strike, Congress had not imposed a uniform national policy on jobless benefits for strikers, leaving it to the states to decide.
Maria Marcus, a law professor who as a public interest lawyer defended civil rights in the South and successfully argued six cases before the United States Supreme Court representing New York State, in one instance winning unemployment benefits for striking workers, died on April 27 at her home in Manhattan. She was 88.
Her death was confirmed by her daughter Valerie Marcus.
Professor Marcus argued the cases before the Supreme Court representing the New York attorney general. She was an assistant attorney general from 1967 to 1978 and chief of the office’s litigation bureau from 1976 to 1978.
In early 1979, the court agreed, 6-to-3, in New York Telephone v. New York State Department of Labor, that the state was empowered to require companies to pay unemployment benefits to striking workers. (Professor Marcus argued the case in 1978.)
The justices rejected the argument by the phone company that because the law implicitly favored labor over management, it had to yield to federal labor laws calling for governmental neutrality. In its ruling, the court affirmed an appellate court’s decision that held that even though the law placed the state on the side of labor during a strike, Congress had not imposed a uniform national policy on jobless benefits for strikers, leaving it to the states to decide.
According to the Supreme Court Historical Society, of the 160 women who have argued before the court since 1880, only eight appeared more than Professor Marcus. She was tied for ninth place with five lawyers, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for the most arguments by a woman before the court from 1880 to 1980.
She taught at the Fordham University School of Law from 1978 until her retirement in 2011. She was only the second woman to become a tenured full professor there.
Professor Marcus moderated Fordham’s award-winning moot court program for 42 years. In 1995, a team of hers won the National Moot Court Competition sponsored by the New York City Bar Association and the American College of Trial Lawyers.
She was credited with writing one of the earliest law review articles on domestic violence, “Conjugal Violence: The Law of Force and the Force of Law,” in 1981.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, who was a co-counsel on the unemployment benefits case before the Supreme Court, described Professor Marcus in a phone interview as a “rigorous litigator who was a perfectionist, but a tremendously patient mentor.”
She taught at the Fordham University School of Law from 1978 until her retirement in 2011. She was only the second woman to become a tenured full professor there.
Professor Marcus moderated Fordham’s award-winning moot court program for 42 years. In 1995, a team of hers won the National Moot Court Competition sponsored by the New York City Bar Association and the American College of Trial Lawyers.
She was credited with writing one of the earliest law review articles on domestic violence, “Conjugal Violence: The Law of Force and the Force of Law,” in 1981.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, who was a co-counsel on the unemployment benefits case before the Supreme Court, described Professor Marcus in a phone interview as a “rigorous litigator who was a perfectionist, but a tremendously patient mentor.”
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