Arlin Adams, LAW’47, HON’98, emeritus Trustee as well as chair and member emeritus of the Penn Law School Board of Overseers, died at his home on December 22. He was 94.

Judge Adams was appointed to Penn’s Board of Trustees in 1985 and served on its Academic Policy Committee. He chaired the Law School’s Board of overseers from 1985-1991 and was an adjunct member of the Law School faculty for more than two decades. He served as an Overseer of the School of Social Work (now the School of Social Policy & Practice) and the Wharton School, and as chairman of the Fels Institute of Government. He and his wife, Neysa Cristol Adams, CW’42, served as co-chairs of Penn’s Harrison Society.

Judge Adams established the Neysa C. Adams Award in the School of Social Policy & Practice and the Neysa Cristol Adams Prize in Biology in the School of Arts & Sciences. Judge and Mrs. Adams created the Arlin and Neysa Adams Internship Program at the Law School.

In 1998, Judge Adams was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree from Penn (Almanac March 31, 1998). He received the University’s Alumni Award of Merit in 1994, the Law School’s Distinguished Service Award in 1981 and its James Wilson Award in 2001. In 2005, the Arlin M. Adams Professorship of Constitutional Law was established (Almanac July 12, 2005).

Judge Adams earned his undergraduate degree from Temple University in 1941 and his law degree from Penn, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Law Review. He began his legal career at Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis. He was named Secretary of Public Welfare for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and in 1969, he was appointed by President Nixon to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He later returned to Schnader, then retired in 2012.

Judge Adams is survived by his wife, Neysa; three daughters, Judith, Carol Kirshner and Jane; four grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on January 15 at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, 8339 Old York Road, Elkins Park, PA 19027.