Lee R. Marks

Lee Robert Marks was born in Queens, NY on October 22, 1935 to George Lincoln and Shirley Chassy Marks. His father was an accountant and founding partner of the firm Marks, Grey & Shron (now CBIZ Marks Paneth) and his mother worked at Macy’s. He grew up in Great Neck, NY (F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “West Egg”) and attended Great Neck High School, where he was the first student in his senior class to be admitted to college that year.

Lee received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Michigan and his law degree from Harvard Law School. Following graduation, he spent the 1960-61 academic year in India on a Fulbright Scholarship at the Indian Institute of Public Administration. After returning from India, he spent four years in the State Department as a special assistant to the Legal Advisor, during which time he worked on matters such as the embargo against Cuban imports (he tried to exempt cigars). He left the State Department to join a boutique Washington DC law firm, Ginsburg, Feldman & Bress, where he spent the next several years working with clients as diverse as the Ford Foundation, the government of Israel, Stavros Niarchos, and the Kappel Commission on the USPS. At the beginning of the Carter administration, he went back to the State Department as the senior Deputy Legal Adviser and worked on, among other projects, terminating diplomatic relations with Taiwan and establishing them with China. He returned to private practice with his previous law firm in 1979, just missing the Iran hostage crisis, although he later represented AT&T at the Iran-US Claims Tribunal in the Hague.

In 1981, Lee met Lisl Zach, whom he married in 1985. In 2007 Lisl was offered a faculty position with Drexel University, and the couple moved to Philadelphia. They divided their time between Philadelphia and their house in Arundel West Sussex, which was an important part of their lives for 25 years, and which they used as a base for eating and hiking trips throughout Europe (the latter helping to offset the consequences of the former). They also traveled several times to India (including one Himalayan trek), where Lee still had friends from his Fulbright days.

In 1997, Lee joined a Miami-based firm as the founding and managing partner of their new Tysons Corner, Virginia practice, where he continued working as a corporate transactional lawyer focusing on the growing tech industry. He retired in 2010. After coming to Philadelphia, Lee was an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Temple University Law School, teaching a course that he developed in collaboration with the Temple University Business School. The course was designed to provide future lawyers and businesspeople with experience in dealing with one another by working on paid consulting projects with national and international companies.

Lee was active in the arts and served on the boards of directors of several performing arts organizations including the League of American Orchestras, whose general counsel he was from 1967 to 2010. He also served as counsel for the White Nights Foundation of America (supporting the Mariinsky Theatre), and as treasurer of the Washington National Opera. He was on the board of the Washington Bach Consort and the Washington Chorus. In Philadelphia he was a patron of the Arden Theatre and enthusiastically supported its outreach programs, especially for children.

In 2017, Lee was diagnosed with lung cancer, which slowed him down but did not stop him from enjoying the good things in life. He died peacefully at home, with his favorite cat, Charlie, keeping watch.

He is survived by his wife of almost 40 years, Lisl Zach, his sons from his first marriage, Jan Marks and Benjamin Marks, his daughters-in-law Lin-Chi Chen and Rachel Schneider, and his grandchildren Isabel Marks and Ezra Marks. He was preceded in death by his brother, Peter Marks.

Funeral arrangements are private and contributions in lieu of flowers should be made to the Arden Theatre, Philadelphia PA.

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