In Memoriam: John Merow

John Merow, former partner and past chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell passed tragically on Jan. 12 at the age of 89. Mr. Merow had been an ALI member since 1979.

Mr. Merow was born on Dec. 20, 1929, in Little Valley, N.Y., southwest of Buffalo, the son of Luin and Mildred Merow. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1952 and served as a lieutenant in the Navy in the Korean War before going to Harvard Law School. Mr. Merow took the reins of century-old Sullivan & Cromwell in 1987 and guided the firm through a challenging period of expansion and broadening services. Additionally, he served on the Council on Foreign Relations, chairman of the American Australian Association, as director and secretary of the United States Council for International Business, and as a board member of the Municipal Art Society of New York.

Sullivan & Cromwell senior chairman Rodge Cohen described Mr. Merow as among the “extraordinarily skillful lawyers who thought about the law as a noble calling, and not just as a business or a profession.”

Read the New York Times and Sullivan & Cromwell obituaries.