He Never Met the Murdered Professor, but He Took the Case for Free

Orin Snyder had never met Dan Markell. Snyder, a New York trial lawyer and partner at Gibson Dunn who represents stars and large companies, had been scheduled to meet him, but the meeting never happened.

The introduction came instead by telephone. Amy Adler, a law professor at New York University and a friend of both men, called to say that Markell had been shot. Markell, a Harvard Law School graduate who had chosen teaching and scholarship over big firm life, taught law in Tallahassee, had two young sons, and had divorced. Adler, who had been dating Markell, asked if Snyder could help his family.

Snyder said of course. "There wasn't even a thought, just a response," Snyder said. He had no assignment and no sense of what the promise would require. That answer turned into more than ten years of unpaid work for Markell's parents, Ruth and Phil, and his sister, ending with a unanimous jury verdict against Markell's former mother-in-law a few weeks ago.

Markell was killed outside his house. Prosecutors and juries later concluded that relatives of his former wife, the Adelson family, had arranged for hitmen to murder him, and focused on his former brother-in-law and mother-in-law. Snyder and his colleagues supported prosecutors in Tallahassee, whom he called committed and excellent, and pressed for extra federal resources for an investigation that took years.

Each conviction led to the next person up the chain. The gunmen agreed to cooperate with prosecutors against the middleman who linked them to the family. That middleman was convicted and then agreed to cooperate against the brother, who was convicted, and investigators then brought the case against the mother, Donna Adelson.

The convictions could not undo the loss of Markell himself, who died in his early years, or what his death took from those closest to him. His two sons will grow up knowing that their grandmother and uncle were found to have plotted their father's killing, Snyder said. Almost immediately after the murder, Snyder said, Markell's parents lost access to their grandchildren.

After the parents lost access, Florida passed a statute tied to the case that gives grandparents rights in these kinds of circumstances. It is known as the Markell Law.