Memphis defense attorney Marvin Ballin dies at 87

Longtime criminal defense attorney Marvin Ballin, the patriarch of the Ballin family of attorneys, died Tuesday morning, the law firm announced.

Mr. Ballin, a founding partner at Ballin, Ballin & Fishman, was 87.

The former owner of the Rite Way Department Store in South Memphis, Mr. Ballin graduated from Southern Law School in Memphis. During his more than 50 years in practice, Mr. Ballin was called a pioneer in criminal defense law. He was joined by his son, Leslie, in 1977 and by his grandson, Blake Ballin, in 2004.

In 2009 Mr. Ballin received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Local defense attorney Michael Working is a regular contributor to For The Defense magazine and interviews “old lions of the bar” who give mentoring advice to young lawyers.

“And the interview with Marvin Ballin was absolutely one of the most popular I’ve ever written. We laughed all day long and I had so much fun hanging out with him. And that will always be how I remember him,” Working said.

Mr. Ballin was an original and among the first to fight for disenfranchised defendants, he said.

“In the segregated South, there were not a lot of people who came in and stood up for those that didn’t have a voice the way Marvin did,” Working said. “The

day that we hung out in my office, he told me about all the characters that he knew back in the day who helped him build a practice. And we laughed like crazy. There’s not a lot of people who stick up for those folks now. There certainly weren’t in the ’60s.”

Defense lawyer William Massey said it was Mr. Ballin who took him under his wing and showed him the ropes as a young lawyers,

“Marvin Ballin is the one that started advocacy here in Memphis. He’s the one that started the good fight in 201 Poplar. He fought that good fight until the day he stopped,” said Massey, who was saddened by news of Mr. Ballin’s death.

“There was a catch in my throat and I came close to tears. He meant an awful lot to me and he meant a lot to a lot of people here,” Massey said.

Mr. Ballin was preceded in death by his wife of 59 years, Sondra Morganstern Ballin, who died in 2010.

Services will be held 2 p.m. Wednesday at Baron Hirsch Synagogue, 400 S. Yates. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the synagogue.