George M. Coburn

George M. "Tim" Coburn died on February 10, 2024, age 100, at Forwood Manor, Wilmington, Delaware, from complications due to Covid 19.
Born on December 15, 1923, in New York City, NY, Tim was the youngest of five children of Katherine Rawn Coburn and Ralph George Coburn of Greenwich, Connecticut. Tim was a graduate of Brooks School, Harvard College, and Harvard Law School. After he enlisted for service in WWII, the Army selected Tim for intensive German language instruction at Lehigh University, followed by rigorous training at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, the German prisoner of war interrogation center. During his 18 months duty in Germany, Tim's unit screened German applicants for civil service positions to assess Nazi affiliation and was also responsible for hunting down Nazi war criminals.
Upon admission to the Massachusetts bar, Tim joined the Office of the General Counsel of the Navy Department. His many accomplishments included the role of editor and contributor to Navy Contract Law, for years the only single authoritative treatise on government contract law.
In 1963, Tim formed a law firm with former Navy General Counsel F. Trowbridge vom Baur, later known as vom Baur, Coburn, Simmons & Turtle, for the practice of government contract law, one of the first such firms in the country. Later, Tim served as counsel to other law firms and was engaged in solo practice from 1992 until retirement in 2013.
A noted expert in government contract law, Tim was active for many years in the Public Contract Law Section of the American Bar Association and served as chair during 1978-79. In addition, he was a long-time member of the Procurement Division of the National Defense Industrial Association and chaired its legal committee for several years. He authored or edited books on government contract law and wrote many articles on that subject.
In 2012, Tim published his memoir "My Sixty Years as a Public Contract Lawyer." In it he candidly and for the first time discussed his sexual orientation, encouraged by the progressing attitudes of the day. He also discussed the harm to his career by the homophobia of earlier times. In 1962, after twelve years of legal work of the highest order, and three and a half years exemplary military service, Tim lost his security clearance and was forced to resign from the Navy Office of General Counsel because that office was not permitted to employ gay attorneys.
A private memorial service took place on June 27, 2024, at the First Parish Unitarian-Universalist Church in Duxbury, Massachusetts with burial at the adjacent Mayflower Cemetery. Tim Coburn personified the best of his generation: duty to country and family, intellectual rigor, integrity, and devotion to the highest standards of the legal profession. He is survived by several devoted nieces and nephews.