Hayes Kavanagh

Joseph Hayes Kavanagh, of New York City and Southampton, NY, died of cancer on May 22, 2023 at the age of 82. Hayes was born in Detroit, MI, to Mary Mahoney Kavanagh and Thomas Giles Kavanagh in 1940, and raised in Birmingham, MI. He attended the University of Detroit Jesuit High School, and following in his father's footsteps, Hayes graduated from University of Notre Dame, Class of 1962.

After college he won a Fulbright and spent a year in Marburg, West Germany, where he became fluent in German. Upon returning to the US, he earned two masters degrees (German Languages and Literatures; Linguistics), a PhD in Linguistics and a law degree, all at the University of Michigan, where he taught in the German and Linguistics Departments and at the English Language Institute. A lifelong academic, Hayes was made an associate fellow of Yale's Berkeley College by the master of the college.

In 1965, Hayes spent a year in Barcelona and lived in the old Gothic Quarter where he picked up Spanish in the cafes and tapas bars by day and taught English at the English Language Institute by night. He joined a Catalan folk band, El Grup de Tres, as the fourth man. In 1967 he moved to Corktown in Detroit, and the next year, he met his wife Justena Stein, known as Tena, whom he referred to as "his first wife" - she was his one and only.

After working at White and Case, including representing the firm in Germany, he cofounded a law firm in Midtown. Hayes played a key role in serving the corporate legal needs of leading European clients with business in the US. For most of his career he was an officer and active member of the German American Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Austrian Chamber of Commerce and the Spain-U.S. Chamber of Commerce. An accomplished string bass player, Hayes combined his love of law and music by putting together jazz events and hiring living legends to play them for clients and friends in the US and Europe

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his three children Thomas Giles Kavanagh II (Christine Elizabeth Donahue), Justena Shea Kavanagh, Joseph Hayes Kavanagh Jr. (known as Declan) (Kristin Grindley Kavanagh) and his grandchildren Kenneth Slater Carberry IV, Scarlett Hayes Carberry, Shea Louise Kavanagh, Joseph Hayes Kavanagh III, and Millie James Kavanagh.

A funeral mass will be held at St. Augustine Church in Larchmont at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 15th.