Jules Phineas Kirsch died peacefully surrounded by his family on June 17, 2023, after a brief illness at his summer residence on Martha’s Vineyard.
Jules was a consummate Upper West Side New Yorker, a passionate operagoer, and a world traveler. He was an avid runner, having won many 5K races in his age group, and ran his last 5K in Central Park three weeks before his death at 93.
After growing up in a single-parent household in Baltimore during the Great Depression, Jules attended Johns Hopkins University on a full scholarship, and graduated with a
degree in mathematics. He subsequently served as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, deployed as a communications officer aboard the USS Healy, a Fletcher-class destroyer. Following his tour of duty, Jules attended Harvard Law School, and became a civil rights attorney, representing impoverished minorities in the Deep South in the mid-1960s.
Soon after, Jules joined Bell Laboratories as a patent attorney, and then transitioned to private practice as an intellectual property litigator for the next 30 years in New York City. Staying true to his social activism, Jules also served as the chairman of the Westchester County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. In the twilight of his legal career, Jules became regional enforcement counsel for the Office of Thrift Supervision, and participated in the civil prosecution of rogue banking executives during the savings and loan crisis in the late 1980s. Following his retirement from the practice of law, Jules remained active in local and national politics, and most recently represented immigrants seeking a better life in the U.S. in immigration hearings in Lumpkin, Ga.
Jules is survived by his wife, Joyce Morin Utz; and his brother, Morton Kirsch; his three children, Debra Kirsch, Eric Kirsch, and Mark Kirsch; and three grandchildren, Ariel Hughes, Phoebe Hughes, and Kyle (“Kai”) Kirsch.