Family Court Review Memorial for Ruth Stern

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12281
• Published date: 01 April 2017
• Date: 01 April 2017
• Author: J. Herbie DiFonzo

FAMILY COURT REVIEW MEMORIAL FOR RUTH STERN

J. Herbie DiFonzo

It is impossible to write about Ruth Stern without thinking of baseball. When she and I were set

up by a mutual friend eighteen years ago, we found instant common ground in our passion for the

New York Mets. She later told me that I won her over right away by knowing that Dennis Ribant

was the first Mets starter with a winning record. Ruth’s pedigree with the Amazins’ came from Open-

ing Day in the old Polo Grounds in 1962. It would astonish no one who knew her to learn that we

videotaped every Mets game all season long, a mark of sheer nuttiness for two professionals.

Ruth was a social worker when she decided that she could do more for children by becoming a

lawyer. She joined the initial class of CUNY Law, an institution entirely devoted, as she was, to pub-

lic interest lawyering. She went on to practice with the Juvenile Rights Division of New York City’s

Legal Aid Society for thirteen years. Her background in social work made her a particularly resource-

ful and effective advocate for the many abused and neglected children whom she represented. This

experience served as the basis of all her subsequent work as both lawyer and scholar.

She twice rescued family law programs at Hofstra. In 2005, when Andy Schepard and I found our-

selves suddenly without an administrator to coordinate the school’s diverse family law programs, we

turned to Ruth, who proved to be a wonderfully capable organizer and manager. Ten years later, Hof-

stra and AFCC implored Ruth to jump into the breach and serve as Managing Editor of Family Court

Review during an unexpectedly troublesome transition. A glance at the issues included in the 2015–

2016 year shows her golden touch as an editor. And reading her Editorial Notes reveals both her

humor and grace with a pen. (A pen, literally—she always composed in longhand on legal pads, only

afterwards recording her prose on a computer.) The opening lines of her November 2015 Editorial

Note illustrate her gentle wit, remarking on Andy Schepard’s pivot from editor to academic dean:

As a baseball fan of almost foolish consistency, Professor Andrew Schepard is well acquainted with the

wisdom of Yogi Berra. He might therefore agree that his recent career change is the logical result of com-

ing to a fork in the road, and taking it.

It came as no surprise to me that Ruth was a marvelous writer. What proved startling was that we

were able to collaborate effectively. We coauthored eleven articles and one book, Intimate Associa-

tions: The Law and Culture of American Families. But our joint efforts almost crashed at the outset,

when I committed the egregious sin of editing her prose without asking her. After she accepted my

apology, we devised ground rules and managed the process quite smoothly thereafter.

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 55 No. 2, April 2017 175–176

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C2017 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts