Edwin Brian Spievack

Spievack

Edwin Brian Spievack

On July 3, 2023, at 91, passed away surrounded by his loving wife of 35 years Yvonne and his two adult sons. Ed was born in Cincinnati Ohio on June 23, 1932, the eldest of three sons to the late Albert and Ethel Spievack. A curious mind and lifelong lover of literature, poetry, history, politics, law and the arts, Ed studied among friends Jim Wright, E.L. Doctorow, Evan Lottman, Ron Sanders and Robert Hecht at Kenyon College, and applied on a dare and transferred to Columbia College where he formed dear friendships with the future cartoonist and the New Yorker magazine Art Director Ed Koren and US History Professor Jim Shenton. He graduated from Columbia in 1954 and, after a summer of odd jobs and riding a motorcycle throughout Europe, attended and graduated Columbia University Law School in 1957. Returning home, Ed took to politics forming a deep bond with Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman John "Socko" Wiethe, and running congressional campaigns before he became, at 26, the Assistant to Jim Lantz, the Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives in 1959. His involvement in Ohio politics and the 1960 Ohio John F. Kennedy Presidential campaign ultimately led him to Washington D.C. in 1966, where he would spend the next 30 years and raise his family. After a stint as Assistant Counsel to lifelong friend General Counsel Richard Schmidt at the United States Information Agency, Ed became a senior aide to FCC Commissioner Rex Lee and started his 20 plus year quest to build a more competitive and open telecommunications world as an antitrust and regulatory litigation law partner at Cohen & Marks. Fighting with a band of brothers and friends that included the talented Al Kramer, celebrated Denver lawyer Jim Lyons, Richard Long, Stanley Blau and John Guttenberg, Ed devoted the remainder of his legal career to the breakup of the AT&T equipment monopoly as outside General Counsel to the North American Telecommunications Association (NATA), an association of independent manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors of telephone equipment, and subsequently gave up the law to become NATA's President. Ed loved Washington, DC, and had deep and enduring affection for Georgetown Day School (GDS), the school his two sons attended. He loved nothing more than time spent with his sons and their friends and families, and to share his ideas on literature, history, politics, the arts, love and life. In 2012, Ed's passions led him to publish his "Memoirs of an Unfinished Generation," and he would continue to write and speak about law and politics until shortly before he died. Coined "Papavack" by Jamie Raskin, his lifelong "also known as", Ed leaves a rich history for his family and is survived by the wife he adored Yvonne, his younger brother Lee (he was pre-deceased by his brother Alan), his sons Jay and David and their wives Susie and Aya, stepchildren Kristin and husband Ted Smith and Paul Bucco, and his grandchildren, Ariella and husband David Hopen, Jonathan Spievack, Natalie Spievack, Elana and husband Ariel Smith, Erica Spievack, Alexa, Caroline, and Ellery Drisko, and Anthony Bucco, and nieces and nephew. A memorial service will be scheduled for a later date.