Richard J. Yurko ’75
Richard J. Yurko ’75 passed away on October 31, 2024. Rich and his family emigrated to the United States in 1960 to Levittown, New Jersey. Following graduation from Levittown High School, Rich graduated from Dartmouth summa cum laude and was a member of Casque & Gauntlet and Phi Beta Kappa societies. He then graduated from Harvard Law School in 1979, serving as an editor for the Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review and taking an interim year off to serve as assistant dean of freshmen at Dartmouth. Rich’s legal career included a clerkship with U.S. District Court Judge James Lawrence King, Southern District of Florida, followed by a litigation law practice with Bingham, Dana & Gould; Widett, Slater & Goldman; and Hutchins, Wheeler & Dittmar. Rich went on to establish the firm of Yurko, Salvesen & Remz, followed by Yurko Partners P.C. in 2020, and served as counsel to Syntheon LLC since 2021. Rich spent more than a decade on the board of directors of GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), including two years as president of the GLAD board. As a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar, he was in court when GLAD’s Mary Bonauto successfully argued the constitutional right for marriage equality before the high court. Rich is survived by partner Jianhua; former wife Martha; son Nathan and his wife, Jianyuan; son Daniel; granddaughter Chloe; and siblings Allen, Donna, Janice, Patricia, and Linda.
