Paul L. Cordish

Paul L. Cordish was an attorney and a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, he was also a businessman who worked for the Cordish Company and the founder of the Cordish Law Firm.

Cordish was born to a Jewish family in Baltimore in 1909, he was a 1926 graduate of the Park School of Baltimore and earned his undergraduate degree at Johns Hopkins University. He earned his law degree, with honors, from Yale Law School in 1932.

After law school, in 1932, he founded the Cordish Law Firm and in 1933, he joined the Baltimore-based, family real estate business, the Cordish Company, founded by his father Louis Cordish in 1910. Cordish Law serves as the legal arm of Cordish Company. In 1934, Cordish was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates to represent the 4th legislative district in Baltimore City. He became the leader of what was then called the liberal bloc. From 1940 to 1941, he was the chairman of the House Committee on Intergovernmetal Cooperation. He voted against the formidable lobby representing bar and saloon owners, and sought to strike out a requirement that witnesses and jurors profess belief in God. From 1963 to 1966, he served as president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. In this position, he was able to collect $3 million from the West German government for Nazi victims of the Holocaust in Baltimore.

In 1957, he married Sylvia Cohn Bloom; they had three sons: Joel A. Cordish of Jerusalem; Michael Cordish of Rehovot, Israel; and David S. Cordish of Baltimore. He also has three stepchildren: Howard Paul Bloom of Lake Hill, N.Y.; Susan F. Abramson of Finksburg; and Marilyn E. Bloom of Pleasant Hill, California. His son Joel was beaten and paralyzed in an attack when he was a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan. His sons, Joel and Michael, converted to Orthodox Judaism and moved to Israel.

• 1938 Race for Maryland House of Delegates – 4th District