Russell G D’Oench III

D’Oench was a partner in the Financial Institutions Group, handling matters including mergers, acquisitions and equity offerings. He was born on Nov. 16, 1953. He was one of four children of Russell “Derry” D’Oench, editor and co-owner of The Middletown Press newspaper in Connecticut from 1959 to 1991, and the former Ellen Gates, known as “Puffin,” who taught at Wesleyan University in Middletown and was curator of its Davison Art Center. His inherited wealth came at least in part through William Grace, his father’s great-grandfather, who was elected New York City’s first Catholic mayor in 1880 and re-elected in 1884 to a second term, during which he accepted the Statue of Liberty as a gift from France. On D’Oench’s maternal side, he was descended from Henry Alexander Wise, Virginia’s governor from 1856 to 1860 and a general in the Confederate army, and Jonathan Dickinson, who in 1746 co-founded and then became the first president of the College of New Jersey, now known as Princeton University. Known as Toby, D’Oench in 1979 joined other young people with inherited wealth to create the North Star Fund, a New York City community foundation that supports “grassroots groups leading the movement for equality, economic justice and peace,” according to its website. He served as the foundation’s executive director until 1983. After graduating from Wesleyan in 1977, D’Oench lived in a black township in South Africa and raised money for a library there. After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1992, he was a clerk for U.S. District Judge Eugene Nickerson before going into private practice. He joined Skadden’s New York office from Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in March 2000. He is survived by his wife, Tani, daughter, Miye, and son, Robin, according to the firm.