Murray Fields, 95; Helped Found Business Law Firm

Murray M. Fields, the last surviving founder of the prominent Los Angeles-based business law firm of Buchalter, Nemer, Fields & Younger, has died at the age of 95.

Fields, who had regularly gone to his office until shortly before his death, died Friday in his Studio City home, said the firm’s Ursula Bower.

Established in 1948 by Fields, Irwin R. Buchalter and Jerry Nemer, the small firm catered to mom-and-pop businesses and maintained a cozy, family atmosphere.

“This really is the end of an era,” Bower said. “As long as Murray was still walking these halls, people were always conscious of what he would want done.”

Fields’ specialties were general business law, real property and construction law and legal malpractice.

Educated at Duke and Columbia universities and New York University School of Law, he began his legal practice in New York in 1935.

Fields was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1947 and set about forming the law firm. Highly respected among his colleagues, Fields was a founding member of the Assn. of Business Trial Lawyers.

Although he was based on the West Coast for much of his career, Fields maintained contacts with his alma mater and in 1998 earned the Judge Edward Weinfeld Award from the New York University School of Law Alumni Assn. Fields also established a scholarship at the law school.

A widower with no children, he had no immediate survivors.

Memorial donations may be sent to the Assn. of Business Trial Lawyers, Box 351649, Los Angeles, CA 90035.