Arlen Specter: “a very close, personal friend and a great American died the day before yesterday, Howard Gittis, a very distinguished…”

“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 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.”