Lawyer’s legacy one of family commitment 

Posted: 8:19 pm Mon, August 30, 2010
By Danny Jacobs
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer

Kenneth D. Pezzulla, a longtime Baltimore lawyer whose interest in the law was sparked by his involvement with the Nuremberg Trials, died Aug. 26 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital of a rare form of cancer. The Lutherville resident was 81.

Assigned to postwar Germany while in the Army, Mr. Pezzulla collected evidence and interviewed victims and witnesses of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. His work was used in the successful prosecution of 24 members of the Third Reich.

“He originally wanted to be a journalist, but [Nuremberg] led him toward the law,” said Jamie Pezzulla, one of his sons.

Mr. Pezzulla graduated from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1957 and was admitted to the state bar that year. He started his own practice in Towson in 1974 that ultimately became Pezzulla & Pezzulla LLC when son Jamie joined the firm in 1995. Mr. Pezzulla’s wife of nearly 57 years, the former Rita Marie DeGirolamo, served as the office’s secretary and legal assistant.

Mr. Pezzulla’s practice focused on estates and trusts, real estate, contracts and banking law, and Mr. Pezzulla was active in the community. He served as legal counsel, president and board member of the former La Corona Building and Loan Association and had office hours at the bank’s Highlandtown branch following board meetings the second Tuesday of each month. Mr. Pezzulla often left with homemade Italian cookies and figs as payments from neighborhood clients, Jamie Pezzulla said.

“Although we missed him on those Tuesday nights, we always looked forward to when he came home,” said John Pezzulla, his other son.

Mr. Pezzulla was born June 3, 1929 in Endicott, N.Y., and moved to Baltimore in 1952. Before starting his own practice, he was an associate with Coady & Farley from 1960 to 1964 and a member and managing partner of Alpert, Lichter, Coleman, Pezzulla & Rogers from 1968 to 1974.

Mr. Pezzulla also negotiated the Baltimore Colts’ leases of Memorial Stadium while an assistant city solicitor from 1964 to 1968.

He became unofficial general counsel in the mid-1970s to the development team behind the Antigua, one of the original high-rise condominium buildings in Ocean City, which opened in 1976. His sons remember Mr. Pezzulla being on the Eastern Shore for days at a time dealing with permits, construction companies and lenders. A photo of the octagonal-shaped building on 85th Street sat on his desk ever since, Jamie Pezzulla said.

Mr. Pezzulla was diagnosed five years ago with sarcoma, a type of tissue cancer, and initially bounced back from surgeries to combat the disease. He continued working until two days before he underwent surgery again in June.

“He went in with the odds stacked against him but the will to live,” John Pezzulla said.

Both sons recalled their father’s presence at sporting events and recitals of his children and grandchildren.

“He was the rock of the family, always there for us,” John Pezzulla said.

Survivors in addition to Mrs. Pezzulla and the sons include a daughter, Anita Pezzulla Ritter, and seven grandchildren.

A viewing is scheduled for Friday afternoon and evening at Ruck Funeral Home in Towson. A funeral Mass will be held Saturday morning at the Church of the Nativity in Timonium, where Mr. Pezzulla was a longtime member. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society and the Church of the Nativity.