Linda Kalmanowitz Grunin ’67, co-founder and co-chairman of the Jay and Linda Grunin Foundation, has passed away at the age of 75, the Foundation announced on April 10.
Born in Brooklyn and raised on the Jersey Shore, Grunin met her husband, Jay Grunin ’67, at NYU Law, where she was one of only 10 women in her class. After graduation, they practiced law together in Toms River, New Jersey, for some 30 years, as well as making real estate and other investments.
In 2013 they established the Jay and Linda Grunin Foundation, formalizing their existing philanthropic activities. Since its inception, the Foundation has invested over $14 million in the community, with an additional $17.5 million committed.
Among the projects endowed by Linda and Jay Grunin and the Foundation is NYU Law’s Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship, launched last May. The center is a trailblazer in social justice and education innovation at the intersection of law and social entrepreneurship—commercial endeavors that support the well-being of people and the environment. The Grunin Center is the home for the International Transactions Clinic (ITC) and the Business Law Transactions Clinic (BLTC).
“It is the audacious hope of Linda and myself that social entrepreneurship can become a major sector of the law, with elements combining both public and private law, which would increase the scalability of sustainable solutions to some of the world’s largest and seemingly intractable challenges,” Jay Grunin said at the time the center was launched.
The Grunin Prize, an annual award that will recognize the variety and impact of lawyers’ participation as for-profit and not-for-profit businesses increasingly advance the goals of sustainability and human development, will be presented for the first time in June 2018.
Posted April 11, 2018