Honoring the life and legacy of the Honorable Phyllis W. Beck, retired judge of the Superior Court, who was a treasured member of the Philadelphia legal community, philanthropist, trailblazer, and mentor.

Honoring the life and legacy of the Honorable Phyllis W. Beck, retired judge of the Superior Court, who was a treasured member of the Philadelphia legal community, philanthropist, trailblazer, and mentor. WHEREAS, Phyllis W. Beck was born on October 7, 1927 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Yiddish-speaking Polish immigrants, and raised in the Bronx; and WHEREAS, Judge Beck graduated from Hunter College High School in 1945, and attended Pembroke College in Brown University, graduating in 1949; and WHEREAS, In 1962, after a year of graduate study in psychology at Bryn Mawr College, Judge Beck attended Temple Law School as a part-time evening student. She excelled in her studies and worked at an accelerated pace, leading her to finish law school in half the time of most of her cohort; and WHEREAS, After graduating first in her class from Temple Law School, Judge Beck practiced law at two firms for seven years. A feminist and trailblazer in her field, she encountered misogyny and other obstacles as a young lawyer in a male-dominated field. She described herself and fellow women who became lawyers in the 1950s and 1960s as a “brave band of sisters who marched into a profession that was not ready for us;” and WHEREAS, Judge Beck taught at Temple Law School from 1972 to 1976 and served as Vice Dean at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School from 1976 to 1981. A lifelong mentor, she was deeply committed to investing in the future of the practice of law and enriching t…