MARK R. KRAVITZ ’72

MARK R. KRAVITZ, 62, a prominent New Haven, Conn., attorney and specialist in First Amendment and appellate law, who was appointed as a U.S. District Judge in 2003, and who received a Distinguished Alumnus award in 2012, died Sept. 30, 2012. A member of Psi Upsilon, he received his degree magna cum laude and with high honors, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After receiving his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, he clerked for the Honorable James Hunter III in the Third Circuit and later for the Honorable Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court. He then joined the firm of Wiggin & Dana, where he worked for 27 years, eventually building and serving as Chair of the firm’s Appellate Practice Group. In 2003 he was nominated as a U.S. District Judge and was sworn in by Chief Justice Rehnquist. During the course of a nine-year career he wrote more than 700 opinions, an extraordinary achievement. He was extremely proud of his work on the Standing Committee on the Rules of Practice and Procedure in the United States Court, and he chaired the Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. Involved in numerous community activities and boards, he was a founding director of the Friends of Yale Children’s Hospital and the Connecticut Food Bank. The Connecticut Bar Foundation recently created a symposium series in his honor. He taught at the University of Connecticut Law School, Yale Law School, and the University of Melbourne (Australia) Graduate School of Law, and also enjoyed mentoring aspiring lawyers and law clerks. Survivors include his wife, Wendy Evans Kravitz; three children, including Jennifer E. Kravitz ’00; and three grandchildren.