Professor Mugel was born in Buffalo on Oct. 10, 1917. His mother insisted on a religious education, and he went to Holy Angels, St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute, Canisius College and UB. A delivery boy’s accidental death in the elevator of the Stuyvesant Hotel, where his father worked, led Mugel to consider a legal career.

Without an undergraduate degree, he entered law school in 1938 and graduated cum laude in 1941. At that time, UB Law was considered an “excellent school, nicknamed Little Harvard, with outstanding faculty. Harvard soon hired all our professors.”

In fall 1941, he joined Kenefick, Cook, Mitchell, Bass and Letchworth, the only large firm in the city, predecessor to Phillips Lytle. Soon after Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Army. While a private at Camp Chaffee, Ark., he helped Gen. Highbird with a tax problem. Impressed, the general recommended him for officer training school despite his poor eyesight, and Mugel became a tank officer.

He returned to Kenefick in 1945 as a tax lawyer and stayed until 1948, when he became a full-time professor at the law school. At the outbreak of the Korean War, he resumed military duty as a tank officer and served until 1952, when he returned to UB as a full-time professor.

In 1954, when Manly Fleischmann and Edwin Jaeckle merged firms, they sought a tax lawyer. Mugel left the law school with the agreement that he could always teach. Fleischmann, an adjunct professor, was Mugel’s mentor; John Lord O’Brian, the most prominent UB Law graduate, was Fleischmann’s mentor. Mugel was fortunate to be in that line of succession. He had the best of both worlds—private practice and teaching. At Jaeckle, Fleischmann, Kelly, Schwartz and Augspurger, he practiced in the tax area. At the law school, he taught Tax and Future Interests and developed the tax program.

Honors:

• Recipient of the Edwin F. Jaeckle Award
• Buffalo Law Review Distinguished Alumnus Award, 1999
• UB’s Samuel P. Capen Alumni Award
• Canisius College Distinguished Alumni Award
• St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute Signum Fidei Award

Born Oct. 10, 1917—Died Sept. 10, 2003