Joseph Gordon Sr., known as a visionary lawyer who grew the legal firm that carried his name into the largest in the city, died Wednesday night in Tacoma. He was 100.

Well known for his legal acumen here and elsewhere in the country, Gordon was a pioneer marketer who understood that small law firms had to grow to meet the challenges faced by their clients.

“When I think of him I think of him as a visionary,” said Bill Holt, the managing partner at Gordon Thomas Honeywell. “He was our patriarch, a visionary to the end, always looking to the future.”

At the firm’s offices in the Wells Fargo Plaza building, word of his death silenced the firm’s board meeting Thursday morning.

“It is very sad,” said firm manager Anita Sutherland who came to work at the firm 28 years ago. “There was just kind of a big sigh and long silences. It’s not as if we were not expecting it. We knew how ill he had been.”

She said Gordon’s passing was more than just sad; the firm and Tacoma had lost a living connection to its history of law.

The firm that Gordon’s father started and Gordon grew into a modern firm dates back to 1894. Today it has about 60 lawyers in Tacoma and Seattle.

Gordon’s life and the firm’s growth are inexorably intertwined, said U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Leighton, who worked for Gordon, Thomas, Honeywell before he became a judge.

“Joe is the founder and chief architect of the modern firm,” Leighton said in remarks at Gordon’s 100th birthday party March 31 at the Murano Hotel in downtown Tacoma.

“In no small measure, those of us assembled here and those who came before us are the fulfillment of Joe’s destiny. He had an idea.”

That idea, Leighton explained Thursday, was to create a law firm that offered clients full legal services as they grew and a firm that stayed involved in the community. Customer service was the rule, he said.

“The firm was everything to him,” Leighton said. “He built it. He was useful even to his 100th birthday.”

“He was an outstanding lawyer,” said long-time friend David Andrews, an attorney with Perkins Coie of Seattle. “He was the corporate deal guy in Tacoma for many years.

“... He was known to be very fair. His word was good. He had the reputation you and I would want. ... He was a great guy to have drink with. He had friends all over the country.”

Until just a few months ago, Gordon still kept office hours years after he technically was retired.

“He was a very large presence at the firm,” Sutherland said. He came to his large office to read and work. He was surrounded by photos of himself with luminaries such as Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

“He was always dressed in a suit,” Sutherland said. “Up until a year ago, he was using his computer, answering e-mails. Amazingly, when he retired in 1980 or ’81 he didn’t use a computer. About 10 years ago he got active in computers.”

“Here is a guy, 100 years old, his body is giving out but he read everything,” Andrews said. “Until four months ago he would underline (what he read) and pass it on to partners because he thought it was important. His mind was great.”

Gordon’s reputation as a business lawyer and a lawyer’s lawyer stretched beyond Tacoma. He was very active in the American Bar Association, where he was treasurer for several years.

He also was president of the American Bar Endowment, which funds charities and law legal research.

“He would know lawyers all around the country and they would know him,” Holt said.

Gordon also was a past president of the Pierce County Bar Association.

Earlier this year Gordon was honored for his 70 years as an active member of the Rotary Club of Tacoma. A certificate honored him for being the longest Rotarian still active in the club in all of Rotary International – “until proven otherwise.”

Born March 31, 1909, in Tacoma, Gordon graduated from Stadium High School and first attended Stanford University.

In an interview with The News Tribune shortly after the Rotary Club gathering, Gordon revealed the law wasn’t his first career choice. He recalled his mother calling him up one day at Stanford.

“I wasn’t going to become a lawyer ... I was going to be an electrician,” he recalled. “... My mother calls me up and says, ‘You’ve got to come home because your dad has a good practice in Tacoma and he’s got a bad heart and he needs you to take care’ of the practice.”

Gordon returned home and transferred to the University of Washington law school, where he earned his degree. He began practicing with his father, also named Joseph Gordon, in the mid 1930s in a firm known as Gordon and Gordon until the mid-1950s.

During World War II, Gordon was personnel director for the Tacoma Shipyard. One of his wartime Rotary projects at the time was creating a dormitory in downtown Tacoma for soldiers who came to town on Saturday nights.

Joseph Gordon Jr., who joined his father’s firm in 1968, said his father was “a big family man” who knew how to keep his work life in proper perspective.

Gordon Sr.’s first wife, Jane, died in 1966. His second wife, Eileen, died in 2001. He is survived by two children, three grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Holt recalled Gordon’s birthday party last month ended with him making a few remarks to his friends who had spoken:

“You know I would respond to all the things said and rebut them,” Gordon said, “but first,` it would take too long. But mostly they were true.”

Mike Archbold: 253-597-8692 mike.archbold@thenewstribune.com