In Memoriam

Eugene B. Strassburger III

Gene died on May 17, 2021. Although he graduated with our Class, he chose to be affiliated with the Class of ’65.

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Obituary: Eugene B. Strassburger III

Longtime judge known for intellect, humor, and common sense

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

May 20, 2021

Known for his legendary sense of humor and feminist activism, state Superior Court Senior Judge Eugene B. Strassburger III also had something that all good judges need: common sense.

“He just had this combination of intellect and common sense,” fellow Superior Court Senior Judge Dan Pelligrini said. “He was unbelievably bright.”

“He was scary because he was so brilliant,” added lawyer Carol McCarthy. “A lot of times really, really smart people can be arrogant, but he was not. He was always willing to listen.”

An Ivy League-educated jurist and Allegheny County Common Pleas judge for 32 years, Judge Strassburger, of [the Pittsburgh neighborhood of] Oakland, died Monday, May 17, 2021, of complications from an intestinal tear. He was 77.

Judge Strassburger grew up in a family deeply rooted in the law. His parents and both of his grandfathers were lawyers. In 1907 his great-aunt became the first woman to graduate from Ohio State University’s law school.

“Growing up, his prevailing interests were law and sports, and if he could have been a professional baseball player, he would’ve,” said his wife, Phyllis Kitzerow, professor emerita of sociology at Westminster College, where she taught for 35 years.

“Gene was really a good baseball player in his youth,” Judge Pelligrini recalled. “He played in the Allegheny County Bar Association softball league and broke his ankle sliding into second base.”

After graduating summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in American studies at Yale University in 1964, Judge Strassburger went on to law school at Harvard University, where he graduated in 1967.

It was his clerkship with state Supreme Court Justice Harry X. O’Brien that initially drew Judge Strassburger to the bench, he recalled in 1978, when he was appointed by Pennsylvania Gov. Milton Shapp to fill a vacancy in Common Pleas court.

“Ever since, I’ve wanted to be a judge,” he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in the July 1978 story.

Judge Strassburger practiced law at the family firm of Strassburger McKenna Gutnick & Gefsky — founded in 1919 — and in 1970 began working in the City of Pittsburgh Law Department, where he met Judge Pelligrini.

Although they had different career trajectories — Judge Pelligrini would go on to serve as a judge and senior judge in the Commonwealth Court for nearly 30 years before being appointed as a senior judge in Superior Court two years ago — Judge Pelligrini learned much from his longtime friend and colleague.

“We worked in the city Law Department together for about five years,” he recalled. “I really looked to him to see how things were done. In a lot of ways, he taught me how to practice law in those five years.”

The pair had a chance to reconnect in recent years, especially when they served together on three-judge panels for some cases, Judge Pelligrini said.

In the nearly 50 years since they met, his old friend rarely missed an opportunity to playfully tease him, Judge Pelligrini said.

“Gene always razzed me,” he said, laughing at the memories.

During his tenure with the city, Judge Strassburger argued a number of appellate cases, including one before the U.S. Supreme Court that hinged on gender-specific want ads that were published by The Pittsburgh Press.

Representing the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, Judge Strassburger argued that the former publisher violated a city sex-discrimination ordinance.

In a 5-4 decision in 1973, the high court ruled for the city, finding that freedom of the press did not extend to “purely commercial advertising.”

In a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story 37 years later, Judge Strassburger cited the case as his greatest success, noting that it came only six years after he began practicing law.

“I peaked early,” he said in the October 2010 article.

“He told me about that case, and I was really impressed,” said Ms. Kitzerow, who met her husband at a party in 1974 and married him four years later.

During most of the 1970s, Judge Strassburger also worked as an adjunct professor at both Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh schools of law.

After his 1978 appointment, Judge Strassburger was elected to a full 10-year term and was retained for three additional terms in the local court, where he served in the family division for 15 years before spending 17 years in the civil division.

He ran unsuccessfully for a seat on Superior Court in 1997 but got a second bite of the apple in 2011 when he was appointed as a senior judge.

It was the culmination of a career working toward equality for all, especially women in the courtroom and beyond.

“He was a feminist,” said his wife. “He was on the Women in the Law Division [at the Allegheny County Bar Association] from the beginning, and he really regarded himself as a feminist. He was very liberated.”

“The Women in Law Committee, as it was called at that time, was formed in 1988, and he was one of the original members,” said Ms. McCarthy, a partner at McCarthy McEnroe Rosinski & Joy. “The committee is as successful as it has been because of the men who think it’s important, and he was one of those men.”

Among his contributions, Judge Strassburger helped to write a model policy for family leave and served on the organization’s gender bias subcommittee.

Judge Strassburger was also at the forefront of changes in state law that addressed victims’ rights and inequitable divorce settlements, and — perhaps most importantly — he demanded respect in his courtroom, Ms. McCarthy said.

Once, when a male lawyer commented on Ms. McCarthy’s looks, Judge Strassburger immediately shut it down, Ms. McCarthy remembered.
“He never tolerated any kind of inappropriate behavior or disrespect in anyone,” she said.

In 2005, Judge Strassburger was recognized with both the Susan B. Anthony award from the Women’s Bar Association of Western Pennsylvania and the Carol Los Mansmann Helping Hand Award by the Women in the Law Division.

He took his role as an advocate for equal rights to heart, his wife said.

“He liked being able to right wrongs and unfairness,” she said. “It appealed so much to him.”

His self-deprecating and always good-natured humor was legendary, said Ms. McCarthy, and the judge had one tell that all the lawyers in town knew about.

“He had this habit of looking over his glasses at you,” she recalled, laughing. “And you knew when you saw that you were about to lose a motion.”

Visitation will be Friday at noon, followed by funeral services at 1:30pm at Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Ave., Shadyside.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.