Robert Hillman

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Biography

Occupation: patent lawyer. Boston, MA.

Physical Description: <DSCR><HEIGHT>6’7”<HEIGHT><DSCR>.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/01/14/robert-hillman-attorney-helped-build-and-expand-fish-richardson-firm/jX8LPWjvaUbpVpYRIJWEqJ/story.html

Robert Hillman, 78; key player in global expansion of local law firm

By J.M. Lawrence GLOBE CORRESPONDENT JANUARY 15, 2016 Mr. Hillman helped turn the local Fish & Richardson firm into a global force. Mr. Hillman helped turn the local Fish & Richardson firm into a global force. When Robert E. Hillman began his law career at Fish & Richardson in the mid-1960s, the old Boston firm built on patent litigation surrounding the invention of the telephone and the Wright brothers’ airplanes employed only 11 attorneys.

Mr. Hillman, a Fall River native whose parents were Jewish Latvian immigrants, soon became the architect of an expansion plan far exceeding founder Frederick Perry Fish’s dreams, when the firm began in 1878.

During Mr. Hillman’s career, Fish & Richardson grew to a global powerhouse with 350 attorneys, 12 offices, and a wall of current accolades from the legal press proclaiming the firm one of the hottest and busiest in intellectual property law.

“He had the personality of a builder and no matter where he worked, he would have been concocting a vision of how to build and grow,” said his colleague David L. Feigenbaum. “He had a brilliant, analytical mind.”

Mr. Hillman, who was 78 and lived in Belmont, died Jan. 4 at a hospice in Cambridge from complications of a traumatic brain injury suffered in 2014 while visiting Charleston, S.C., where he fell after tripping on a tree root protruding through a sidewalk, according to his family.

“Bob was a leader in the true sense of that hackneyed word: a person who could identify a vision, persuade skeptics around him to the high value of his dream, and garner every ounce of their energy to help him fulfill it,” said Feigenbaum, who knew him for 35 years.

“What was even more remarkable was his insistence that this vision be built, not on wishful thinking, but on unflaggingly objective facts,” Feigenbaum said. “Always it was the cold hard facts unvarnished by fear, personal prejudice, or Pollyannaish enthusiasm that guided his thinking.”

Born in 1937, Mr. Hillman was the eldest son of Myron Hillman, who was known as Kip, and the former Bertha Vogel. His parents ran a vending machine company and serviced scores of pinball machines in the region.

Mr. Hillman went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-1950s to study chemistry, fulfilling a family dream stoked by his grandfather. He discovered he enjoyed physics and economics far more than chemistry and switched his major. He also enjoyed the challenge of intellectual sparring on the debate team and set his sights on becoming a lawyer after graduating in 1959.

He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1962 and served in the Army Reserves for several years before joining Fish & Richardson.

“When I came out of law school, I had very little idea of what to expect from a legal career, but I think it was good practice preparation intellectually,” Mr. Hillman said in an interview included in the 2005 book, “View From The Top: Q&A With Law Firm Leaders.”

He added that “it wasn’t until a few years went by and I started to have real client responsibilities that brought human interaction and the business aspects of law to the fore that I really started to enjoy my career.”

Described by colleagues as shy at heart, Mr. Hillman, who was 6-foot-5, could appear impatient and fierce when others made errors in legal work. “He didn’t suffer fools,” Feigenbaum noted.

His demeanor softened though over time as he honed “a special charm and grace in his delivery,” Feigenbaum added.

“I will remember him as I first knew him: offering bold ideas, articulating compelling arguments with all angles considered, and always interested to share a story and a smile over a drink with good friends,” said his colleague Frank Scherkenbach.

Mr. Hillman married three times. His marriages to Ruth Hopkinson and Miriam Hillman ended in divorce. He and his first wife, Ruth, had a son and adopted a son and a daughter.

His children recalled childhood Sunday mornings when their father would make breakfast and play the piano. He also coached Little League teams.

Mr. Hillman, who said he might have been a jazz pianist if he had not become an attorney, used to play Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” and boogie-woogie tunes while his sons Matt and Tim danced. Matt, of Seattle, is a software engineer for Google. Tim Murley, who lives in Brookline, is an artist whose paintings have been displayed in Boston and San Francisco galleries.

Mr. Hillman’s daughter, Elizabeth of Framingham, who was born in Bogota, Colombia, said she was close to her father, who helped her cope with learning disabilities and “taught me confidence and to believe in myself.”

Liz Hillman, who has been a probation officer in the Framingham District Court for 16 years, added that “he believed in me and was proud of me.”

Though praised at work for his intellectual acumen, Mr. Hillman had a reputation in his family as a less-than-gifted driver, who also struggled to find his way back to the same restaurant where the family often went for dinner, an odyssey that Liz said she and her brothers “thought was hysterical.”

Twenty one years ago, Mr. Hillman married Texas native Gail Kaplan, president of recruiting firm of Kaplan & Jass. They met when Fish & Richardson tapped Kaplan to find more attorneys to expand the firm’s national reach.

She cared for him as he learned to walk again after falling, describing him as her soul mate. He gave her a sense of self-confidence she had never known while she brought out a sense of joi de vivre long hidden behind his law books and buttoned-down shirts. “He learned how to have fun with me,” his wife said.

They married in a Las Vegas wedding chapel where an Elvis impersonator escorted Gail down the aisle. She wore green high-top sneakers and a frosted wig, while Mr. Hillman sported a brightly colored tie. When it came time to kiss the bride, Mr. Hillman took off Gail’s wig and tossed it across the chapel, she said.

In addition to his wife, daughter, and two sons, Mr. Hillman leaves a brother, Kenneth of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and two grandchildren.

A private celebration of Mr. Hillman’s life will be held in May. Burial will be private.

Mr. Hillman enjoyed growing flowers and vegetables on his three-acre property. “It was like walking into Shangri La,” his wife said. In the summer, he brought bags of zucchini to share at the office, along with bouquets of blue hydrangeas.

He swam in his pool with his grandson and granddaughter and frolicked in a way his own children rarely saw when they were young.

“When he finally got grandkids, I saw a lot more openness and playfulness,” Matt said. “He really enjoyed them.”

In the weeks before his father’s death, Matt took out his cellphone and played for him recordings of the “Maple Leaf Rag” and other piano favorites Mr. Hillman once played for his children.

J.M. Lawrence can be reached at jmlawrence@me.com.

• Fact: Residence (1935) , ,
• Fact: Residence (1940) Ward 8, Fall River, Fall River City, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States
• Fact: Residence (01 Oct 1990-01 Jan 1995) Brookline, Massachusetts, United States
• Fact: Residence (01 Jan 1995) Boston, Massachusetts, United States
• Fact: Residence (20 Oct 2006-29 Oct 2007) Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Sources

• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 30 September 2018, 14:10), entry for Robert Hillman(PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:L1RP-3LL); contributed by various users.
• Personal recollection of events witnessed by Andrew Hillman as remembered 29 Aug 2018.