Temple Law School’s rapidly expanding business law curriculum
received a substantial boost when prominent Philadelphia business
attorney and longtime Temple Law supporter Murray H. Shusterman ’36
decided to underwrite an endowed chair in the area of law he
practiced with demonstrable success during his long career with a
$1.1 million gift.

Shusterman has practiced, taught, and excelled in the field of
business and real estate law since graduating from Temple Law in
1936. This expression of Shusterman’s commitment to the law school
is only the most recent in a long list of contributions. “It is not
an exaggeration to say that, without Murray Shusterman, Temple Law
School could not have achieved its current level of excellence,”
says Dean JoAnne A. Epps. “His commitment and generosity have been
an inspiration to all of us.”

Shusterman’s contributions to the law school are not only
inspiring, they are unparalleled. For more than seventy years,
Shusterman has been an integral part of Temple University and its
law school. He began his long association with Temple as an
undergraduate, graduating with honors in 1933. He went on to become
a member of the law school’s first day division class, where he
edited the Temple Law Quarterly and graduated with honors in 1936.
He left the Temple fold only briefly, to secure an M.A. in
Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Before joining Fox Rothschild, Shusterman was a deputy city
solicitor in Philadelphia and counsel for the Commission on Human
Relations and for the City Council. He also served as vice
president for the Philadelphia City Board of Health.

Murray Shusterman’s contribution to Temple Law includes many years
as an adjunct professor, teaching corporate and real estate law. He
also served as president of the alumni association, as a member of
the Law School Board of Visitors, and as a member of the University
Board of Trustees. In 1959, the law school’s first major
fund-raising organization was founded. Murray Shusterman joined
with a high-powered and determined group of Temple Law alumni that
included Judge Charles Klein ’21, Samuel Lander ’31, and Judge
Ethan Allen Doty ’31 to form the Temple University Law Foundation.
Years of dedication and diligent fundraising by the Law Foundation
have increased its initial endowment of $50,000 to one currently
worth nearly $3 million.

In 1981, when Temple Law faculty and students showed increasing
interest in international study and research, Shusterman
established The Murray H. Shusterman Israel- Temple Law School
Exchange Program Fund. For 27 years, Temple Law conducted a summer
study abroad program in Tel Aviv. Today, the fund enables students
to spend a semester at Tel Aviv University. By the mid-90s, the law
school was expanding and needed to enlarge its physical space
beyond Klein Hall. In 1994, as tangible evidence of his devotion to
the law school and to Temple University, Shusterman and his family
gave one of the largest gifts to the law school at that time, a one
million dollar gift towards the renovation of Park Hall, a
historically certified English Gothic church located a block from
the law school on Park Mall. The meticulously restored building
opened officially in 1997 as Murray H. Shusterman Hall. Today the
architecturally unique facility hosts conferences, symposia, and
other formal gatherings.

In 2013, Shusterman’s generosity took a new and creative turn when
he announced his desire to contribute to the flourishing business
law curriculum by endowing a chair. He explains it this way: “Lord
Francis Bacon three centuries ago said, ‘I hold every man a debtor
to his profession.’ Whatever progress I’ve made personally and
professionally, I owe to a large extent to the excellent education
I received at Temple undergraduate and law school.”