56 | JUNE 17 • 2021 

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OBITUARIES
OF BLESSED MEMORY
A Veritable Legal Eagle
R

obert Zeff, (born 
Avram Abbot Zeff), 
87, died, after a life 
well spent, on June 6, 2021, 
while watching a basketball 
game at home in Westport, 
Conn. 
Born in Tel Aviv, 
Israel, on Feb. 2, 
1934, Bob grew up 
in Detroit, where 
he played high 
school baseball well 
enough to pitch at 
the University of 
Michigan and for 
the Tigers’ farm 
team until bad 
knees forced him to 
make other career plans. He 
remained an avid baseball fan 
for a lifetime of rarely missed 
Detroit Tigers games. 
Bob graduated from the 
University of Detroit Law 
School at 22 and was among 
the youngest applicants to 
ever pass the Michigan bar 
exam (1957). He began trial 
practice immediately in his 
ailing father’s law firm and 
the name Zeff & Zeff PC still 
exists 65 years later. Although 
Bob was initially a “pink-faced 
young lawyer trying to retain 
his father’s clients,
” by the early 
’60s he had successfully built 
the firm’s practice in handling 
catastrophic personal injury 
cases. When million-dollar 
verdicts first began, Bob 
became a national leader in 
seven-figure recoveries. 
He was proudest of a 
series of press injury cases 
that changed the industri-
al codes in Detroit’s plants. 
Newsweek covered him among 
the “Top 20 Personal Injury 
Trial Attorneys” and his 
closing arguments to juries 
were events that drew spec-
tators from all parts of the 
courthouse. The Michigan 
Institute of Continuing Legal 

Education featured cassettes of 
his Million Dollar Arguments, 
and he authored the chap-
ter on closing arguments in 
ICLE’s Michigan Civil Procedure 
During Trial. Bob’s reputation 
was aptly captured by a Detroit 
News columnist who 
observed, “Defense 
attorneys cringe when 
Zeff enters the court-
room.
” In 1975, Bob 
was inducted into the 
Inner Circle, a group 
limited to 100 of the 
best trial lawyers in 
the United States. 
Mr. Zeff was once 
featured in another 
Detroit News spread covering 
a handful of the Most Eligible 
Bachelors in the city; he later 
married Susan Jane Kroll from 
South Carolina, who hadn’t 
seen the article. They celebrat-
ed their 34th wedding anniver-
sary on June 2, 2021. 
Bob was privately a frequent 
praiser of Susan in matters of 
the heart, golf and business, 
often followed by the humor-
ous disclaim, “Don’t tell her I 
said that.
” 
Bob’s interests and expe-
riences warranted a book he 
often promised to write. He 
was widely world traveled and 
had extraordinarily colorful 
experiences. He owned a jai 
alai fronton in Connecticut 
with related pursuits in Spain, 
where he became a fan of 
Salvador Dali and began 
assembling a museum-quality 
Dali collection; this was only 
the tip of an iceberg of fine art 
he and Susan collected. 
Bob traveled to South 
America and had Indiana 
Jones-type jungle adventures 
complete with artifacts and 
arrows flying. He was once 
surprised to find himself dis-
cussing international business, 
seated at a table with the pres-

ident of Indonesia at a state 
dinner.
Bob was an unrepentant 
golfer for many years and 
reached his golf pinnacle on 
a scramble team that won a 
nearly $40,000 pot at a char-
ity tournament for the Boca 
Raton Regional Hospital. His 
pace of play in golf, as in his 
private life, was deliberate. He 
was a reliable late arrival for 
virtually all scheduled events, 
a practice Susan was unable to 
dent during three decades of 
marriage. Bob had imposing 
family member dogs all his 
adult years; they were fiercely 
devoted to him and Susan but 
gentle enough to take a daily 
Brazil nut from his lips at 
breakfast. He lived life fully.
Bob was a member of 
Congregation Shaarey Zedek 
in Southfield and Palm 
Beach Orthodox Synagogue 
in Florida. He was an avid 
supporter of Israeli causes 
and a generous benefactor of 
Hebrew University, where the 
Zeffs established the Susan 
and A. Robert Zeff Graduate 
Scholarship Endowment Fund 
for law school students in per-
petuity. 
Mr. Zeff is survived by 
his loving and devoted wife, 
Susan of Boca Raton, Fla.; his 
niece, Sandra (Mark) Gold, 
the daughter of Bob’s beloved 
older sister, Nita “Billie” (Moe) 
Barak, who predeceased him; 
and Sandra’s children. 
He was also predeceased by 
his father, Louis Zeff; and his 
mother, Bertha Friedman Zeff. 
Contributions may be made 
to the Division of Hematologic 
Neoplasia, Dana Farber 
Institute, 450 Brookline Ave., 
Boston, Mass 02215. Interment 
was at Clover Hill Park 
Cemetery. Arrangements by 
Ira Kaufman Chapel. 

A. Robert Zeff

and the late Diana and the late 
George Bogorad.
Interment was at Adat 
Shalom Memorial Park. 
Contributions may be made 
to a charity of one’s choice. 
Arrangements by Ira Kaufman 
Chapel.

EDITH LEVIN, 
97, of West 
Bloomfield, died 
June 3, 2021.
She is survived 
by her daugh-
ters and sons-in-law, Susan 
and Dr. Burton Ellis, Judi 
and David Hinds, Deborah 
Schwartz, Joan Simons, and 
Carol Wiseman; son and 
daughter-in-law, Dr. Joel and 
Debra Hershman; sister-in-
law, Doris Miller. She was 
the proud grandmother of 
11 and great-grandmother 
of 13. Mrs. Levin is also sur-
vived by many loving nieces, 
nephews, cousins, a world of 
friends and many students, 
who remember her to this 
day. 
She was the beloved wife 
of the late Ralph Levin; the 
dear mother-in-law of the 
late Joel Schwartz, the late 
Sheldon Simons and the late 
Irving Wiseman; the loving 
sister of the late Dr. Arthur 
Miller, and the late Shirlee 
and the late Jack Shorr. 
Interment was at Adat 
Shalom Memorial Park. 
Contributions may be made 
to Hospice of Michigan, 
43097 Woodward Ave., 
Bloomfield Hills, MI 
48302, hom.org/donations; 
or Jewish Ferndale, 1725 
Pinecrest Drive, Ferndale, 
MI 48220, jewishferndale.
com/#donate. Arrangements 
by Ira Kaufman Chapel.

