Robert B. Hirsch, top District lawyer and
philanthropist
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Robert B. Hirsch, 83, a partner at the Washington firm of Arent Fox who
specialized in corporate and securities law, real estate and mergers and
acquisitions, died of kidney failure March 13 at Georgetown University Hospital.
He was a District resident.
Mr. Hirsch began working as a law clerk at Arent Fox in 1949 and became a
partner in 1956 and member of the executive committee at its inception in the
early 1980s. He took senior status after retiring in 1997.
In 1992, Washingtonian magazine listed Mr. Hirsch among the city's most
prominent lawyers and noted his work as chief outside counsel for the Artery
Organization, a real estate investment and management firm. The magazine also
cited Mr. Hirsch's work for client Herbert Haft of the Dart drugstore franchise.
Robert Bruce Hirsch was born in Newark, N.J., to Jewish immigrants from
Eastern Europe. He moved with his family to Washington when he was 13 and
graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1943. After serving in the Army Air
Forces during World War II, he graduated from George Washington University
and its law school.
In 2001, he received the Judge Learned Hand Award from the Washington
chapter of the American Jewish Committee for his achievements in civic
leadership. He was a past president of Temple Emanuel, the Reform synagogue
in Kensington, and served on the board of philanthropic organizations, including
the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. He was general counsel to the
Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and the D.C. Jewish Community
Center. In the early 1990s, he was chairman of the GWU law school board of
advisers.
His wife of 61 years, Rosalyn Marinoff Hirsch, died in 2009. Survivors include
five children, Noah Hirsch of Phoenix, Alene Sternlieb of Annandale, Andrea
Hirsch of Washington, Carolyn Walsh of Cabin John and Henry Hirsch of Silver
Spring; and eight grandchildren.
-- Adam Bernstein