[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 24629-24630]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        EULOGY FOR HOWARD GITTIS

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, a very close, personal friend and a great 
American died the day before yesterday, Howard Gittis, a very 
distinguished Philadelphia lawyer in the great tradition of Andrew 
Hamilton who defended Peter Zenger. Those of us who are Philadelphia 
lawyers take great pride in that tradition from Andrew Hamilton and the 
historic defense of Peter Zenger, and Howard Gittis was in that mold.
  I have been a personal friend of Howard Gittis for some 50 years. I 
was told he went to sleep on Sunday night and didn't awaken, died in 
his sleep apparently of a heart attack.
  Howard Gittis was a partner in the very prestigious firm of Wolf, 
Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen for some 23 years. He then joined a noted 
entrepreneur, Ronald Perelman of New York, and was the executive vice 
president of McAndrews & Forbes in New York City.
  Howard was noted for his charitable contributions both as an alumnus 
of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he contributed 
substantially to Penn's law school which named Gittis Hall and the 
Gittis Center for Clinical Legal Studies at Penn

[[Page 24630]]

in honor of Howard Gittis's contribution to the law school and his 
charitable support of the university.
  Not only did he support the University of Pennsylvania, but he also 
served on the board of Temple University for 31 years, including 5 as 
chairman of the board, and the Temple Student Center is named for him.
  Always affable, always cheerful, always ready to lend assistance to 
friends or even to those who were not close friends. He left an 
indelible mark in the Philadelphia legal community and in the New York 
business community.
  His funeral services occurred earlier today in New York and burial 
occurred this afternoon in Philadelphia.
  I think it appropriate to pay tribute to an outstanding American who 
did so much for the legal profession and so much for charitable 
contributions with both the University of Pennsylvania and Temple 
University.

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