Obituary of John J Francis
John J. Francis, Jr., a New Jersey trial attorney, died at his home in Mendham on September 16, 2024, ten days before his ninetieth birthday.
John was born in Orange on September 26, 1934, to John J. Francis and Penelope Connolly Francis. He grew up in South Orange and graduated from Columbia High School. He received a B.A. from Williams College (1956), where he majored in history, played lacrosse, and was a member of the DKE fraternity. He earned his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1959).
John began his legal career by clerking for his father, who then was associate justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. Next, John served as Assistant United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey and later as Assistant Essex County Prosecutor.
For over forty years, John practiced law at Shanley and Fisher (now Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath) in Newark and later Florham Park, where he became a consummate civil litigator, concentrating in a wide variety of cases including complicated medical malpractice actions. His practice expanded and evolved over the years to primarily business and commercial litigation.
John’s reputation as a superb trial attorney was recognized when he became Shanley and Fisher’s first attorney to be designated a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, an honor restricted to one percent of all lawyers in each state. John had several landmark cases which have been of precedential value in New Jersey. Foremost among these are cases refining New Jersey’s “entire controversy” doctrine and discovery doctrine in statute of limitation cases.
John believed in contributing community service and, while maintaining a full-time practice, he served as President (Mayor) of the Village of South Orange in the 1970s; as a Trustee and ultimately Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hospital Center at Orange; and as a Commissioner for the State Commission of Investigation from 1979 to 1982, investigating organized crime in New Jersey. John also served as the Vice-Chair of the Supreme Court Committee on Bar Admissions, Chairman of the Supreme Court Committee on Character, and Chairman of the Supreme Court Committee on Ethics (Essex County).
Despite his demanding career pursuits, John always found time for his three children, Carey, John (III), and Sean. While raising his young family in South Orange, he was well known to gather up the children from his Glenside Road neighborhood and take them to the local little league baseball fields to hit them countless fly balls and grounders with his prized Fungo bat. He loved playing doubles with his children and nephews on the grass courts of the Orange Lawn Tennis Club. For a time, he coached his son Sean’s basketball team. Later in life, he developed a passion for golf, spending countless rounds at the clubs of Northern New Jersey and making a semiannual golf pilgrimage to Carlsbad, California, where he would play golf every day.
John was an avid reader and a history buff. In his retirement, he took numerous classes at Rutgers University, Drew University, and New York University. He loved visiting Civil War battlefields and participating in the North Jersey Civil War Round Table.
John was predeceased by his sister, Cynthia F. Webber, and his brother, Hugh P. Francis. He is survived by his former wife, Mary Louise Francis, his three children, Carey, John (III), and Sean Francis, and his niece and nephews.
Services were privately held.
