Obituary | Big-city lawyer enjoyed a rebirth

For three long decades, Richard Levidow worked in the tightly wound world of Manhattan corporate law.

So when he moved to Seattle, the man decided to let loose. He took a job as a public defender. He got inside that courtroom. And he made a new name for himself, at the age of 59, as a lawyer with a streak of the showman.

When his client was accused of eating evidence, Mr. Levidow showed just how hard that was to do, in those seconds before the police arrive. He took some bills from his own wallet and started to chew.

"It really was difficult, and the jury could see that," said his wife, Mamie Rockafellar, 64. "So he won that case."

Mr. Levidow came to Seattle nearly two decades ago, a widower with few connections, full of big-city bombast and a career at the top of a cutthroat game. He died in Seattle on Dec. 9 at age 74, a married man who had converted from Judaism to Catholicism, a low-paid lawyer who loved his work, a gardener, a tennis player and a strong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union, where he wants any donations in his memory to be sent.

For all that change, Mr. Levidow struggled for years to accept the Seattle tradition of saying, "Have a nice day."

"Rather sickening," said Rockafellar, summing up her husband's appraisal of Northwest polite. "He didn't care for it at all."

Apart from his wife, Mr. Levidow leaves behind a son, Bjorn, who lives in Bellevue. The family has not yet arranged for a memorial.

Mr. Levidow was raised in Sunnyside, Queens, the son of a pharmacist. It was a tight-knit neighborhood, his wife said, and he kept some friends through old age.

But he felt the sting of anti-Semitism from the start. On family trips, motel owners would turn the family away, saying no Jews were allowed. He graduated from Cornell University, and later from Yale University Law School, but the credentials made no difference: Jews were not allowed in the big law firms of New York City.

So Mr. Levidow and his brother set up their own successful law firm. He married Lucie Anderson and together they raised two children, Bjorn and Linnea.

But the legal work was grueling, isolating and not very satisfying. Responsibilities at home weighed him down.

"He was not a man who was enjoying his life," said Bjorn.

Mr. Levidow finally retired, to a home the couple bought in rural Pennsylvania. His wife later died.

It happened two weeks before his son was set to leave for graduate school at the University of Washington. Bjorn Levidow invited his father on the cross-country trip, told him it was a chance to start something new.

The car trip took five days, and some of it his father spent crying. But when they reached Seattle, Mr. Levidow began to make his way. He found an apartment, started volunteering, took the Washington state bar exam and passed.

"He told me I saved his life," said Bjorn Levidow, a program manager at Microsoft.

Mr. Levidow got a job as a public defender, starting at the bottom rung, then moving into the felony division, where he stayed for more than a decade. It was, for him, rewarding work.

"He felt like he was making the system work, as best it could," said Rockafellar.

He met Rockafellar toward the end of a long string of blind dates. She liked the way he dressed, all dapper in his three-piece suits. He was smart, too, if a bit sarcastic. It was his defensive way back then, she said, to cut people down with words.

But as they dated, and eventually married, the man mellowed. He lost the sarcasm but not the humor. He found a passion for tennis, and later for gardening. They bought a house on Camano Island, and Mr. Levidow planted rose bushes all around it.

His daughter died at the age of 25. Her son died at the age of 23. They pushed through it together, Rockafellar said, and came out with a love for life.

More recently, Levidow started searching other religions for a clear concept of heaven. He was hoping to see his first wife and his daughter again. He converted to Catholicism a couple of years ago.

It helped so much, his son said, particularly when Mr. Levidow was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer four months ago. He could face it without fear. He knew he was headed to heaven.

Cara Solomon: 206-464-2024 or csolomon@seattletimes.com