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Longtime Twinsburg attorney passes away

SHERRY KARABIN
Legal News Reporter

Published: December 9, 2016

He practiced law for more than 60 years, focusing on assisting those in need, but on Nov. 8 attorney Robert Vernon Maher passed away after a brief illness. He was 96.

“Robert was an amazing man,” said his wife Joan May Maher. “He was always helping people. He did a lot of pro bono legal work and he never charged most of his paying clients a great deal.”

“My father was a very sweet man,” said his daughter Joli Maher Magnus. “He had a strong sense of family, faith and community, all of which guided him throughout his life.”

Born in Akron on April 17, 1920 to parents Andrew and Elizabeth Maher, he was the third of four boys.

A graduate of Buchtel High School, Maher received his bachelor’s degree in economics from The University of Akron and his juris doctor from Akron Law School (now The University of Akron School of Law).

He married Joan May in April 1957, less than six months after the two started dating.

“We both knew that we were right for each other and we were right,” said Joan.

They raised five children, four daughters and a son, Michael, who passed away in 2005.

A sole practitioner for most of his career, Maher started off sharing office space in Akron with his brothers Ralph and Ed.

For a time, Maher and attorney Nelson Hovey were partners in Akron.

His daughter said Maher, who lived in Hudson, moved his practice to Twinsburg in the early 1960s.

“My father felt that Akron had plenty of attorneys to represent residents,” said Magnus. “He said Twinsburg was in need of more attorneys who were willing to represent the poor. He wanted to help the people in Twinsburg who were in urgent need of a lawyer.”

Maher’s wife started teaching in the Hudson public school system after he moved to Twinsburg.

For the last 15 to 20 years of his career, Magnus served as her father’s only legal secretary.

“I worked part time,” said Magnus, an employment specialist at the Jewish Family Service Association in Beachwood. “My dad handled a wide variety of legal matters for members of the Twinsburg community. After my mother retired, my dad moved his office to Hudson.”

Sole practitioner R. Andrew Richner first got to know Maher when he became a law clerk for Twinsburg attorney Leland Zahniser.

 “Leland was an acquaintance of Robert’s,” said Richner. “When I became a partner with Leland in the mid-1970s, I would sometimes have cases with Robert. We were typically on opposite sides of real estate transactions.

“I was a young lawyer at the time and I sometimes came to the client meetings with an aggressive posture,” said Richner. “Robert was a quiet and calm man and his attitude always helped to create a much more collegial environment.”

In addition to client matters, he said the two sometimes had lunch together and often saw one another at Akron Bar Association functions.

 “He was a worthy but friendly opponent,” said Richner.

Maher retired at age 91. He spent the last few years of his career practicing out of his home.

“He did cut down on his hours when he started working from home,” said Magnus.

“He wanted so badly to make it to age 100,” said Joan.

His wife and daughter said Maher made a point of giving back to the community for much of his life.

He served on the board of the Twinsburg Heights Community Center, as president and precinct committeeman for the Hudson Democrats and was a founding member of the Serra Club of Akron (an international organization of Catholic layman, laywomen and permanent deacons that share a deep faith and a desire to put that faith into action) and the Hudson Montessori School.

In addition, Maher devoted time to assisting The Kiwanis Club of Hudson, the Boy Scouts and the Dads Club at Western Reserve Academy. He also supported many girls’ sports teams.

“My husband worked with troubled teens, helped the homeless and poor at the Peter Maurin Center in Akron and was a frequent American Red Cross blood donor,” said Joan.

The United Way of Summit County recognized Maher as a leader, rewarding him with a hot air balloon ride.

“He was acknowledged for his decades of service in collecting corporate donations in northern Summit County for the United Way,” said Magnus.

“One of the things I remember about dad is that he was very mindful not to waste resources,” said Magnus. “I think that was largely a result of his growing up during the Depression.”

“Robert had a great vocabulary,” said Joan. “The whole family enjoyed his love of words, poetry recitations, old-fashioned sayings, prayers and his list of ‘Maher’s Laws.’

“Some of those laws included ‘the worst never happens,’ ‘everything is connected; we are all associated,’ ‘if you look out for everybody who needs you, God will take care of you’ and ‘one is never in too much of a hurry not to be courteous or to be careful.’”

Joan said Maher was a sports enthusiast, who was known for his putting skills on the golf course. He also played on an ice hockey team in Hudson.

She said they often went cross-country skiing locally and at Mt. Bachelor in Oregon, hiked trails in Cuyahoga Valley National Park through the seasons and went zip lining at Mount Snowdon in Wales when Maher was 60.

Magnus said her father’s dedication to helping others has influenced her to do the same.

“For more than 30 years, I worked as an employment specialist for social services agencies, assisting people with barriers to employment,” said Magnus.

His love of the law did rub off on his daughter Leah, an attorney currently working as head of operations for product area cloud systems/infrastructure worldwide at Ericsson, an information and communications technology company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.

“I always knew as a kid that I wanted to be a lawyer from watching my dad helping people,” said Leah Maher.

Maher was laid to rest on Nov. 14 at Markillie Cemetery in Hudson.

He is survived by his wife Joan; daughters Joli Magnus, Leah Maher, Elise Maher and Maria Zaorski as well as grandchildren Eric and David Magnus and Leah Magnus Kniesly; Nellie, Robert (Bo) and Liam Maher; Tesia and Andrei Zaorski and Quinn Franko.

His son Michael, parents Andrew and Elizabeth Maher and his brothers, Ralph, Leo and

Edward all preceded him in death.


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