Steve Goodman, a senior partner at Morgan Lewis, renowned leader in Philadelphia’s startup community and longtime member of the law school’s Advisory Board, died on March. 2.

Respected for his role in nurturing some of Philadelphia’s most prominent businesses and dubbed “the fairy godfather of Philadelphia startups” by Technical.ly Philly, Goodman played a central role in creating the successful emerging business and technology practice at Morgan Lewis.

Goodman served on the law school’s Advisory Board from the school’s inception through most of its first decade. He also served as an advisor to the school’s Entrepreneurial Law Clinic, which was established in 2011.

“Steve was a valued member of our board,” Dean Emeritus Roger Dennis said. “Steve understood startups and gave very good advice to me. He was also a wonderful teacher when I knew him as a faculty member at Rutgers.”

In addition to teaching at Rutgers, Goodman held adjunct faculty positions at Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he earned his JD and edited the law review.  

Goodman received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Legal Intelligencer in 2015 and was named as one of the three most influential Philadelphians in the last 30 years by the Philadelphia Business Journal. In 2011, he received the Legend Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies. Over the course of his career, he served on the advisory board to then-U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Biden and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. He was an accomplished jazz pianist who appeared for decades at venues in Philadelphia and issued numerous recordings with his combo.