Stephen A. Cozen, founder of Cozen O’Connor law firm, has died at 85

Stephen A. Cozen, 85, founder and chairman of the Cozen O’Connor law firm, which started five decades ago as a four-lawyer litigation shop in Philadelphia and grew to more than 900 attorneys across North America and the United Kingdom, died Thursday, Dec. 19, at a hospital in Boca Raton, Fla.

Michael J. Heller, CEO and executive chairman of Cozen O’Connor, said that Mr. Cozen, of Villanova, had been hospitalized earlier this month with acute pneumonia while on vacation.

“Stephen was an icon in the legal industry,” Heller, also Mr. Cozen’s nephew, said in a telephone interview. " ... It’s like an end of an era.”

Ed Rendell, the former Philadelphia mayor and Pennsylvania governor, fondly recalled a friendship with Mr. Cozen that stretched back to when they both attended the University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s.

Rendell described Mr. Cozen as the successor to the lawyers who helped to establish Philadelphia as a great legal center.

“I can’t think of a law firm that was built from scratch becoming so big and so successful as the Cozen firm,” Rendell said in an interview.

Mr. Cozen, along with Patrick O’Connor, guided a firm that is now regarded as among the top 100 in the country.

Mr. Cozen successfully litigated such high-profile cases as the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, the Hyatt Regency Kansas City walkway collapse, and Philadelphia’s One Meridian Plaza high-rise fire in 1991.

He won a Pennsylvania Supreme Court case that allowed Girard College to continue operations as a tax-exempt entity.

In 2003, Mr. Cozen and other members of his firm filed the first lawsuit against the government of Saudi Arabia for the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the United States. The litigation is still ongoing.

“The guiding tenet of Steve’s legal practice was simple: be the most prepared person in the room,” his law firm said. “His focus on preparation was legendary and his investigations were exhaustive. He would read every page, talk to every witness, track down every lead, and visit every scene — often when the rubble was still smoking. Once he had committed, he could not be deterred.”

Mr. Cozen also was a top Democratic fundraiser and adviser, including for President Joe Biden.

But he also was active on a local level.

Neil Makhija, a Montgomery County commissioner, counted Mr. Cozen as a mentor.

“He still took time to sit with young people to impart his wisdom and experience,” said Makhija, who taught election law at Penn.

“He was always excited to have a conversation on policy and law,” Makhija said.

Mr. Cozen was the oldest child born to Jean and Samuel Cozen and grew up in South Philadelphia until the family moved to Wynnewood, where he attended Friends’ Central School, according to a biography and remembrance provided by Cozen O’Connor.

Noting that his father was a basketball coach at Drexel University, “Steve credited Sam Cozen with teaching him the value of hard work and fair play,” the law firm said.

”Steve also credited his wife of 63 years, Sandra ‘Sandy’ Wexler, for being the heart and soul of every good thing in his life. He still marveled at his luck in having met Sandy when they were teenagers at summer camp and always said that his achievements were truly their achievements,” the firm said.

Rendell echoed the sentiment: “His crowning achievement was his marriage to Sandy.”

Along with a small group of other Penn graduates from the same era, including the late David Montgomery, the former president of the Phillies, and Michael Stiles, a former U.S. attorney, Rendell and Mr. Cozen attended Penn basketball games together for more than five decades.

The former mayor said it was important to Mr. Cozen that he was able to share his success with Philadelphia.

“He believed in the city,” Rendell said.

Mr. Cozen helped to establish a Police Athletic League center in Francisville named after his father.

He was a founding benefactor of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and a major supporter of the Jewish Federation of Philadelphia, his law firm said.

Cozen served on the boards of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia Foundation, and the law school at the University of Pennsylvania.

He was involved in the USC Shoah Foundation, serving as chair of the Board of Councilors from 2015 to 2019 and leading a capital campaign that raised $100 million for genocide research and education, his law firm said.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Cozen is survived by three daughters, Sheri Resnik, Lori Rosenberg, and Cathi Snyder, as well as seven grandchildren, and his sister Ellen Scarcelle.

The funeral service will be held on Sunday, Dec. 22, at 1 p.m. at Har Zion Temple, 1500 Hagys Ford Rd., Penn Valley, Pa.