Miles Alexander

MEMORIAL SERVICE: Monday July 14, 2025 2:00 PM at The Temple 1589 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA 30309

LIVE STREAMING: https://streaming.the-temple.org/

ALEXANDER— Miles J, 93, Atlanta, Georgia, passed away on July 11, 2025, at home surrounded by loving family in his final days. Miles is remembered for leading an extraordinary life laced with intellect, accomplishment, humility, wisdom, caring, tennis matches galore, a cheeky sense of humor, and far more progeny than he originally intended.

A first generation American and Depression era baby, Miles grew up as an only child and Army brat. After attending high schools in four different cities, including one in Japan, he enrolled at Emory University at age 16. There Miles became a star student, president of TEPhi fraternity, and debate champion.

In the 1949 campus-wide debate tournament, he and his best friend Elliott Levitas argued the affirmative of the resolution: “Resolved that Emory University should admit Negroes to the Emory Graduate School.” They won. Civil rights and civic engagement would become hallmarks of Miles’s unshakeable commitment to justice.

In college, he also met Elaine Barron, a fraternity brother’s little sister visiting from Boston who soon became his true partner in life and love. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa, he moved to Boston to attend Harvard Law School and be close to her, not necessarily in that order. They married days before Miles graduated, again with honors.

After two years in the military and a year teaching at Harvard (he fondly remembered his student Justice Antonin Scalia), the two returned to Atlanta where Miles took a job at one of the few firms in the city that hired Jews, now known as Kilpatrick Townsend. He would go on to chair the firm, heavily recruit and mentor minorities and women (and many others), and build the firm’s intellectual property practice into one of the world’s best.

An internationally renowned trademark attorney himself, his roster of clients included Adidas, Frito-Lay, Domino’s Pizza, Rolls Royce, Harley-Davidson, the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc., Disney, REM, Indigo Girls, The Monkees, and Jefferson Airplane.

Miles also routinely worked pro bono cases throughout his career, including successfully challenging Georgia’s voter registration ID law and representing three Ethiopian women who had been tortured in their home country by a man one of them discovered was living in Atlanta.

In the Jewish community, he served as the top Southeast lay leader of both the American Jewish Committee and Anti-Defamation League and remained active in both for decades.

Always looking to promote progress in Atlanta, Miles worked as a close advisor to his good friend and Atlanta’s first Black mayor, Maynard Jackson. The two referred to each other as “my brother,” and Maynard always enjoyed the many Miles’isms like “pimple on a whale,” “lack of false modesty,” and “making a silk purse out of a sow’s ears.” Miles also led the effort to integrate and bring women into City’s leading business club and lawyers association, as well as his law firm.

Among the countless international, national, and local awards he received and cherished, Miles took special pride in the Emory Medal (the university’s highest honor) and induction into the historic Gate City Bar Association Hall of Fame (one of only two white attorneys ever to have been so honored).

But Miles viewed his proudest and most unexpected accomplishment to be his family. Having envisioned a future as a professor or federal judge, not necessarily with children, Elaine had other plans. The resplendent result was a 65-year career with Kilpatrick Townsend, a 70-year marriage, and the couple’s children Kent (Diane), David (Deanna), Michael (Pamela), and Paige (Steve Grand), and their eleven grandchildren.

In his final days, looking back at nine-plus decades, Miles viewed family vacations as his most precious time, especially annual trips to Tybee Island, Georgia, with body surfing, sandcastles, tennis courts, good books, friends, and lots of grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at The Temple in Atlanta, Georgia on Monday, July 14, 2025, at 2 pm. A reception will follow the service at The Temple.

Shiva will be held from 7pm to 9pm, on Tuesday the 16th and Wednesday the 17th at 750 Park Ave. Atlanta, GA 30326. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to Atlanta Legal Aid or a charity of your choice, to make the world a better place.