My friend Colin Russell, who has died aged 80, was born into a family of celebrated lawyers and judges, and deployed his own legal expertise in the service of charity.
His great-grandfather was the 19th-century lord chief justice Lord (Charles) Russell of Killowen, the first Roman Catholic to hold that office for centuries, and the same title was later held by two other family members, law lords of great eminence.
Colin followed his father, Gerald, and his elder brother, Cyril, into the firm founded by his great-uncle, Charles Russell solicitors, which was well known for its commitment to reconciling the demands of the law and Catholic conscience. Its private client lawyers, such as Colin, measured their success in terms of their invisibility, and over his career he worked with discretion on behalf of several household names.
He never sought the limelight but made major contributions to the public good through charity work. From its inception in 1982 until 2016, he was a trustee of what is now the Jean Sainsbury Animal Welfare Trust, though with his help Sainsbury did much else besides, including giving funds to Great Ormond Street hospital in London and lasting support to the Royal Opera House. He was also active for many years in the Winged Fellowship Foundation (later ReVitalise), providing respite holidays for people with disabilities.
But his greatest contribution, for which he was appointed MBE in 2002, was through University House, founded in Bethnal Green, London, in 1886 to provide free legal advice to those in need. Colin joined the ranks of senior lawyers, includingJohn Mortimerand Cherie Booth, who volunteered their expertise, and went on to serve as its chair for some 20 years until 1996.
A lack of funding made Colin’s tenure especially challenging. But by exploiting his extensive network of legal contacts, he managed to keep the centre alive by marshalling groups of city lawyers and other friends on marathon sponsored walks along the Ridgeway and the Thames Path.
Born in Guildford, Surrey, Colin was brought up in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, the son of Barbara (nee Reynolds) and Gerald Russell. He went as a boarder to Beaumont college, Berkshire, and University College, Oxford, where initially he studied physics, later changing to English literature. He started at Charles Russell solicitors in 1966 as an articled clerk and was made a partner in 1970. In 1978 he married Jessica Rainsford-Hannay.
Following an early retirement in 2012 due to ill-health, Colin kept up his charitable work by following Jessica into the Cirencester branch of the Citizens Advice Bureau, each of them putting in 10 years of service.
Colin’s friendships are measured by the fact that at Christmas he would take a whole row of seats at a pantomime, to entertain his many godchildren. But away from his professional and charity work, his sense of fulfilment derived from his two greatest joys, his marriage to Jessica, and watching Richard Elwes, his son from an earlier relationship, grow into a mathematician and writer at Leeds University.
He is survived by Jessica, Richard, and three grandchildren.