Milton A. “Mickey” Feldman, 84, of Chestnut Hill, a corporate lawyer who held a wide variety of leadership positions in the Philadelphia area, died May 11 of respiratory failure at Abington Hospital.
Mr. Feldman retired in 2006 from Dilworth Paxon after working at several Philadelphia law firms where he specialized in finance, corporate and real estate law across the country. In one of his most high profile cases, he was the lead attorney for unsecured creditors in the Drexel Burnham bankruptcy litigation.
In addition to his career in law, Mr. Feldman occupied prominent positions in the areas of education, good government and politics. He was for 19 years a member of the board of overseers of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, where he had received both a bachelor's degree in economics and a law degree.
As one of the longest serving overseers, he helped to develop Penn’s international ties and led the effort to start the Six Nation Research Project (1995-2006), based on the idea that education policy has a direct impact on the economies of nations. He traveled to China, Japan and Singapore on behalf of GSE to encourage the start of this program that, in addition to those nations, included Germany and Switzerland (and the United States). He also served as his 1952 Class President since 2006.
He also spent nearly three decades on the Republican State Finance Committee’s executive committee where he helped elect a succession of Republican Governors and U.S. Senators – starting with his involvement as a senior advisor to Gov. William Scranton’s successful campaign in 1962.
He was chairman from 1960 to 1965 of Operation Alphabet, which served to combat adult illiteracy through a series of more than190 TV programs designed to help adults learn to read.
In the 1990s he founded and served as chairman of the nonpartisan Philadelphians for Good Government, a group of business, civic and religious leaders who were concerned with where the city was headed and who sought to give the city a new direction.
Mr. Feldman served for more than three decades as a trustee and later an emeritus trustee of Chestnut Hill Hospital.
He served as chairman of the admissions committee and president of the Benson Table at the Union League and in the late 80s and early 90s worked to help raise awareness and support from corporate America for the Philadelphia-based Eisenhower Fellowship program.
He was a member of the executive committee of the Philadelphia Committee on Foreign Relations and was special gifts chairman and a director at the American Cancer Society’s Philadelphia Division as well as a director of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Raised in West Oak Lane, he was a graduate of Cheltenham High School.
He was a longtime member of the Sunday Breakfast Club and the Philadelphia Cricket Club.
He is survived by his wife of more than 50 years, the former Charlotte Tiedeman, a son, Alexander, and a granddaughter. – W.F.
