Maria Marcus

Maria Eleanor Lenhoff Marcus, a trailblazing lawyer and beloved law professor, died peacefully at her home in New York City on April 27, 2022. Her life was defined by her enduring commitments to justice, equality, and love.

As Associate Counsel for the NAACP from 1961 to 1967, Marcus traveled through the South litigating and winning civil rights cases. At the NAACP, she collaborated closely with General Counsel Robert L. Carter and Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers, among many other activists. Her work at the organization helped forge her lifelong commitment to using the law as a force for good.

From 1967 to 1978, she served as an Assistant Attorney General for New York State, eventually becoming chief of the Litigation Bureau. She argued and won six cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including New York Telephone v. New York State Dept. of Labor, which secured unemployment benefits for striking workers.

In 1978, Marcus joined the faculty at Fordham Law School, where for over thirty years she was a celebrated teacher and mentor to generations of students, guided the moot court team to national renown, and was named Joseph M. McLaughlin Professor of Law. A passionate educator, Marcus believed strong personal connections were crucial to teaching and often maintained decades-long friendships with former students. She was frequently recognized by Fordham with top teaching honors including the Dean’s Medal of Recognition and Teacher of the Year. For a decade after retiring from teaching in 2011, she continued to be the moderator of Fordham Law’s Moot Court Board.

Marcus brought her commitment to fighting for justice to her scholarly work, authoring numerous law review articles on topics ranging from domestic violence to school desegregation to regulation of hate speech on the airwaves.

Maria Eleanor Lenhoff was born in Vienna, Austria, on June 23, 1933, to Clara and Arthur Lenhoff. Her father was a justice on the Austrian Constitutional Court, the equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court. The family fled Austria on the day of the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. Justice Lenhoff, a Jew, was on the Gestapo blacklist for his legal decisions on religious equality in universities. The family fled first to Switzerland, then to England, finally settling in the U.S., where Lenhoff taught law at the University of Buffalo.

Maria graduated from Yale Law School in 1957 as one of a handful of women in her class, after earning a BA in English from Oberlin College. While at Yale, she met fellow law student Norman Marcus, whom she married in 1956. Norman became a pioneering city planning lawyer, serving as longtime Counsel to the New York City Planning Commission. They lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where they raised three children: entertainment attorney Valerie Marcus, psychologist Dr. Nicole Marcus, and philosopher Dr. Eric Marcus. They were treasured parents-in-law to Peter Miller, Dr. Paul Church, and Dr. Lydia Marcus, and grandparents to Nora Miller, Anna Miller, Lena Church, Max Church, Lola Marcus, and Beatrice Marcus.

Maria was a vibrant raconteur, avid reader, singer, dancer, and cook. Her early experiences fleeing the Nazi regime solidified her belief that good could come even out of the depths of evil. This enduring faith in humanity informed her work, her teaching, and her bonds with her family and friends. She saw, and brought out, the very best in everyone whose lives she touched.

To paraphrase one of her favorite books, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Maria Eleanor Lenhoff Marcus was as good a friend, as good a mother and grandmother, as good a person as the good old city knew, or any good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. And so, as she read aloud to her family every year: God bless us, every one.

Memorial service Sunday, May 1, 2:30PM, Riverside Memorial Chapel. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Fordham Law School Moot Court program, Heifer International, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.