Joseph Solomon*

Joseph Solomon was the son of poverty-stricken Russian immigrants. He and his seven siblings spent most of their younger years in a four-room, cold-water tenement in New York's East Harlem. While in elementary school, Solomon earned 10 cents a day making deliveries for stores. On the weekends, he sold fruit and delivered newspapers.

Eventually, Solomon had to leave school to work full time. When he was 15, he got a job as a messenger boy for law firm Leventritt, Cool, Nathan & Lehman, which paid $10 a week. After being exposed to some of the most outstanding legal minds of the century, Solomon was determined to become a lawyer. In one year of evening study, he made up for his lack of formal education and passed the Regents qualifying examinations.

In 1927, he graduated from New York Law School, and two years later, he joined the legal staff of Leventritt, Cool, Nathan & Lehman. He became a partner in 1948 and rose to senior partner in 1966. He later joined Gallet, Dreyer & Berkey.

Solomon served as executor and adviser for the estates of eminent artists, industrialists, and philanthropists, and he enjoyed national stature in the legal fields of wills, trusts, and estates.