Senior Judge Albert Sheppard Jr. dies

COMMON PLEAS Senior Judge Albert W. Sheppard Jr. loved being a judge.

"If they didn't pay me, I'd pay them," he once said. "I couldn't afford to do that, but that's how much I like it."

He wasn't the only one who enjoyed his judgeship.

"I never met a lawyer who didn't enjoy trying a case in front of him," said Common Pleas President Judge Pamela Dembe. "He was just very good at what he did."

Judge Sheppard, a man of many interests, from composing music to cheering on the Philly sports teams, collapsed and died Sunday while cutting the grass at his home in East Falls. He was 74.

"He loved to work in his garden," Dembe said, "so it's not a bad thing. He really left his mark in all kinds of positive ways on the court. And he was just such a nice guy."

Dembe said Sheppard's family had been trying to get him to cut back on some of his activities, but he wouldn't hear of it.

"He was just determined to keep on doing what he wanted to do," she said. "It's a good way to go, I guess."

Sheppard, who made his mark on the Philadelphia court system by leading a committee of judges to recommend and pursue important reforms, was renowned among his colleagues for his devotion to his job and the hard hours he didn't hesitate to put in.

"I'm a compulsive German," he once told an interviewer. "It's always been my belief that if you are going to do a job, you do it the best you can."

Sheppard served in the Navy in the early '60s at the time of the Cuban missile crisis when the world seemed on the brink of World War III. He was aboard the destroyer USS Furse as part of the Naval blockade ordered by President John F. Kennedy to stop the Soviets from sending missiles to Cuba.

Sheppard was also known for his humility. When his committee submitted its report recommending extensive reforms to the court system in 1990, he wanted no credit.

"The less about me the better," he said at the time.

Sheppard was also the team leader of the court's commerce case-management program, established in 2000 to deal with a massive backlog of cases involving business disputes.

Judge John Herron, one of the two original commerce court judges, told the Philadelphia Business Journal, "From the time he got here, he displayed marvelous character and a brillant legal mind. When I was administrative judge, I leaned on him heavily for advice."

Sheppard's son, Mark, a partner in Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads, said his father "was my best friend. He was blessed with many gifts but was very humble about them. He might have been the smartest person in the room, but the last to know it."

Albert Sheppard was raised in East Oak Lane and graduated from North Catholic High School, where he was a standout on the football team. He received a degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University. After the Navy, he worked as an elecrical engineer at Philadelphia Electric Co., now Peco Energy.

He attended Temple University Law School at night. He graduated first in his class in 1968, and worked as an anti-trust lawyer until being elected to Common Pleas Court in 1983.

Sheppard was a skilled pianist and loved to compose music. "He wrote some beautiful songs," his son said. He enjoyed all kinds of music, from the classics to the Moody Blues. He also was a big fan of Philadelphia sports teams.

Besides his son, he is survived by his wife, Alice; two daughters, Lisa and Susan Sheppard; a stepdaughter, Tanya Hayner; his former wife, Marlene, and nine grandchildren.

Services: Funeral Mass noon Friday at the Cathedral Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul. Friends may call at 6 p.m. tomorrow at the McIlvaine Funeral Home, 3711 Midvale Ave. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken.