SYDNEY CONE

CONE--Sydney M., III. Sydney M. Cone III ("Terry Cone") died peacefully on June 3, 2020, at his home in New York City, after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease. He was 89 years old. A major figure in the legal community, Terry Cone's career spanned half a century. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1959 (Yale Law Journal, Editor-in- Chief), he served as special Consultant to the then-Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, George W. Ball, and joined Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, the law firm where he worked as an associate, partner, and senior counsel in its Washington, D.C., Brussels, Paris and New York offices. He was instrumental in opening its offices in Tokyo and Frankfurt. In 1996, he joined the faculty of New York Law School, where he was C.V. Starr Professor of International Trade and Finance, directing the newly established Center for International Law. Terry Cone authored International Trade in Legal Service (Little Brown, 1996), the first comprehensive treatise on the regulation of lawyers and law firms engaged in a global practice. Guido Calabresi, former student, Professor and Dean at Yale Law School, now Senior Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, recalled: "Terry Cone was a remarkable person. He thought lucidly, wrote beautifully and had exquisite taste. All these made him a magnificent lawyer and teacher. But they also made him a delightful person and friend. He will be sorely missed." Terry Cone served on key committees of the New York State and New York City Bar Associations when accounting firms made a push to enter into important parts of legal practice. Terry Cone opposed this move, emphasizing the necessity for the legal profession to continue to "exercise independent professional judgment." Current regulations maintain this independence. By the time Terry Cone took up this debate on the legal profession, he'd exercised his independent professional judgment in high-level corporate law representations that spanned finance and manufacturing, around the world, including Lehman Brothers (where he was a close adviser and personal friend of its senior partner Lewis Glucksman) and International Harvester (in its travails with bankruptcy). He advised the new government of post-Soviet Russia in its renegotiations of its foreign debt. He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. One of Terry Cone's partners, William Gorin, observed: "For over 40 years, Terry Cone was one of the most strategic thinkers in Cleary Gottlieb's leadership. He was a long- term thinker, with a global perspective and keen analysis. He was also a kind and patient teacher and mentor to generations of young lawyers. Terry Cone personified the core values of his firm: excellence in lawyering, unwavering integrity, public service, internationalism and diversity of backgrounds and thinking. He was unique, and he was my friend." Born in Greensboro, North Carolina, Terry Cone was a great-nephew of Moses H. and Caesar Cone, the two brothers who founded Cone Mills, one of the country's largest textile companies (for decades, the exclusive supplier of denim for Levi Strauss & Co) and of their sisters Claribel and Etta, the famous Baltimore art collectors. His mother, born Isabel Frank, was the daughter of Eli Frank, a lawyer and judge in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, Sydney M. Cone Jr., was an executive at Cone Mills in Greensboro. Terry Cone graduated from the Asheville School, before attending Haverford College, from which he graduated in 1952 summa cum laude. He went to Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, and served as lieutenant JG in the United States Navy's Sixth Fleet. Terry Cone was predeceased by his brother Donald Frank Cone - they shared a love of canoeing on Rangeley Lake in Maine. He is survived by his wife, the art critic and author Michele Cone, whom he married in 1952, in Paris, France. Other survivors include his son, Timothy, daughter, Annabelle, and two granddaughters, Rosalie and Clara Lipfert. Terry Cone enjoyed classical music, tennis and sailing. A person once consulted Terry Cone: "Terry, a friend asks me to write a college letter of recommendation on behalf of his son. I've never written such a letter before. I worry I'll say something wrong." Terry Cone asked: "Would the first sentence of your letter read: 'I bring to the attention of the Admissions Committee my following reservations about this candidate.'" "No," the person answered. "Then," Terry Cone said, "you're fine!" Memorial contributions may be made to the New York Landmarks Conservancy: nylandmarks.org. Funeral services will be held at a later date.