IN MEMORIAM

PAUL HENRY ABRAM (JD 1967) passed away on Oct. 19, 2018, at the age of 77.

Abram joined the Air Force after high school and was stationed on the island of Crete as a spy for the National Security Agency (NSA). He later covered the Cuban Missile Crisis as a spy for NSA. In 1963, he was honorably discharged from the Air Force and attended USC Gould where he graduated in 1967.

Abram practiced law in California and Oregon from 1967 until 2004. While director of litigation for Inland Counties Legal Services from 1977 to 1980, he was named national director of the Migrant Farmworker Program by the National Legal Services Corp. in Washington, D.C. He successfully handled numerous lawsuits that gained decent housing for farmworkers.

Abram retired from law in 2004 to focus on writing and photography. In 2012, he published his first book, Love Poems With an Attitude. Trona. Bloody Trona: A Revolution in Microcosm followed in 2013.

Abram is survived by his wife, Marcia.

RONALD BAKAL (JD 1970) passed away on Aug. 4, 2018, at the age of 72.

Bakal was an attorney for 47 years in Beverly Hills and Palm Desert. He used the power of litigation to “fight for the little guys” against larger businesses and the government.

Bakal was a lover of sports, art and travel. He is survived by his wife, children, grandchildren and sister.

CRAIG BIDDLE (LLB 1956) passed away on Sept. 23, 2018, at the age of 87. Biddle pushed through state laws requiring breathalyzers for suspected drunk drivers and smog checks for all cars while representing Riverside from 1964 until 1974.

A passionate French horn player, Biddle spent three summers at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan and intended to spend his life as a musician. However, after enrolling at Occidental College, he discovered a lifelong interest in the law and sold his horn to pay for the first semester of law school at USC.

After graduating, he moved from South Pasadena to Riverside where he became a deputy district attorney. He served there four years, before moving to the other side of the courtroom as a public defender. The experience gave him an interest in becoming district attorney. To gain name recognition for that campaign, he ran for State Assembly as a Republican and won.

Biddle was Assembly majority leader from 1969 to 1971, then resigned to run for Senate. After one term representing the Riverside area in the Senate, he lost by 0.2 percent after President Richard Nixon’s resignation.

After leaving office, Biddle started a law firm in Sacramento, then retired in 1995. He served occasionally as a lobbyist and adviser until shortly before his death.

Former lecturer in law ALEX POLSKY, who taught at Gould from 2002 to 2014, passed away on Feb. 23, 2019. A fixture in Southern California ADR and legal circles, Polsky resolved thousands of disputes in his nearly three decades as a neutral and ADR pioneer.

JIM PREIS (JD 1978), a Los Angeles lawyer, USC Gould lecturer and activist who fought for the rights of the mentally ill and disabled for decades, died on Oct. 12, 2018, at age 66.

An Angeleno, Preis earned his undergraduate degree in philosophy at Stanford and his JD from Gould in 1978. A year later, Preis took over as the head of Mental Health Advocacy Services (MHAS) and continued to lead the L.A. nonprofit, which provides free legal services to people with mental disabilities, until early in 2018. (See p. 28)

With MHAS, Preis litigated several major cases on behalf of people with mental disabilities, lectured on mental health advocacy issues, and authored books, law review articles and professional articles on legal issues affecting people with mental disabilities.

He co-wrote the textbook “The Essentials of California Mental Health Law” and lectured on the topic. Preis is survived by his children, both lawyers, and his wife, whom he married in 1981.

Nathaniel Alfredo Putera Lubis, better known as “Alfredo,” an LLM student, passed away on March 13, 2019, during spring recess while visiting his home in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Alfredo was 26 years old, with plans to return to Indonesia and work as an attorney focusing on technology after completing his LLM degree in May. He graduated from law school at the University of Indonesia in 2015, and then worked in litigation at a law firm in Indonesia before coming to USC.

Those who knew him at Gould attest to his very warm and easygoing nature. Alfredo loved music, cooking, soccer and trying new restaurants. His friends remember him as a cheerful person, who was always happy and was still exploring his passions. As an example of his broad interests, Alfredo took classes in drumming and tennis at USC.