Morris Joseph Kramer ’63

Morris Joseph Kramer ’63 of New York City died April 19, 2013. The cause was complications of prostate cancer, his son Oliver ’02 told The New York Times. Morris grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Fort Hamilton High School. He graduated from Dartmouth cum laude with a major in philosophy. He earned a law degree from Harvard and practiced at Cahill Gordon & Reindel in New York City for several years before joining Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. At Skadden Morris advised corporations in hostile takeover and proxy bids and was credited with helping to transform Skadden into one of the world’s leading law firms. In 1973 he designed a hostile bid by the International Nickel Co. of Canada for ESB Inc. and in the 1980s he advised takeover titans Bruce Wasserstein and Joseph Parella as well as Ted Turner when he sold Turner Broadcasting System to Time Warner. Morris helped Skadden open a London office and advised the unified government of Germany in privatizing the East German economy after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In his spare time Morris read the complete works of Anthony Trollope and watched every New York sports game. He was divorced three times, but his second former wife, Nancy, went with him to every doctor’s appointment when he became ill. In addition to Oliver, Morris is survived by son Jeremy, brother Stephen and three grandchildren. Memorial gifts may be made to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.