Stephen J. Korn, a World War II veteran with decades of legal experience, died at 94 on March 1 in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. He had moved there last year to be closer to his daughter.
Korn attended Overbrook High School and the University of Pennsylvania, entering the latter on a four-year Mayor’s Scholarship. Midway through his studies, Korn enlisted in the Army Air Corps, flying missions out of Italy as a bombardier for the Fifteenth Air Force. Though he didn’t talk much about his military service when he was younger, later in life he started to discuss his decision to enlist and what that time had meant to him, according to his son, Peter Korn.
After finishing his service, Korn completed a bachelor’s degree at Penn, then graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1950. He began his law career in Philadelphia at the firm of Blanc, Steinberg & Balder, and then at Fox, Rothschild, O’Brien & Frankel.
In 1959, he co- founded the firm of Korn & Cohan with the late Donald S. Cohan. In 1966, Korn & Cohan merged with Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish & Levy. There, he served on the executive committee and chaired the corporate and real estate department for decades.
Korn was committed to a variety of community institutions. He sat on the board of directors of the Albert Einstein Medical Center beginning in 1976, and served as chairman of the boards of the Albert Einstein Healthcare Foundation and the Albert Einstein Medical Center from 1990 to 1993. He also served on the board of managers of the Wistar Institute, the board of trustees of the Delaware Valley Hospital Council and the board of trustees of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, among others.
Though Korn was not particularly religious, his son said, his Jewish community was how he defined himself as a person. He was “deeply embedded in the Philadelphia Jewish community,” Peter Korn said. Korn once even considered becoming a rabbi. He never found the religious fervor requisite, his son said, but his desire to remain a “communally oriented person” drew him to the law.
Korn is remembered by his family as a loving father and brother, a warm friend, an astute attorney, a generous mentor to legal associates, an opera enthusiast, a scrambler on the tennis court and an optimistic golfer.
He is survived by his son, Peter, and his daughter, Margaret Hawkins; his brother, Edward Korn; his grandchildren, Rebecca, Anne and Samuel Gee; his companion of many years, Hinda Brown; and his ex-wives, Peggy Ann Karr and Sandra Korn.
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
