DOREEN DAVIS

Doreen Davis passed away on April 7, 2021 after a courageous and steadfast twenty-one year battle with metastatic breast cancer. She fought the disease with the same determination and tenacity that fueled her rise from a childhood of extreme poverty to the top of the legal profession.
Doreen had no childhood interaction with the legal profession to serve as a role model in her hometown of Harvey's Lake, a small town near Wilkes-Barre. Every achievement was her own. Doreen held leadership roles in top Philadelphia and New York law firms, ultimately being named among the top labor lawyers in the country. At the time illness forced her to retire, she was lead counsel in the largest litigation ever before the National Labor Relations Board.
Doreen believed that her greatest accomplishment was her daughter, Samantha Simmons. When Samantha was in elementary school, Doreen was elected to be chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, the first working mother and only the second woman to serve. Doreen was equally proud of Samantha's choice to become an attorney and of her loving marriage to Jason Besecker. Doreen also is survived by her husband of nearly thirty-two years, Robert Simmons, as well as numerous siblings, nieces, nephews and their progeny. She enjoyed the company of her many close friends and legal colleagues, who, along with her medical caregivers, provided support throughout her course of treatment.
There will be a live-streamed service on Monday, April 12, at 10:30AM. (adathisrael.org/livestream). A live celebration will be held at a later date when safety will permit us to laugh and cry together. In the interim, raise a toast to her life with a glass of her favored white burgundy.
Those who wish to remember her with a donation may do so to a charity of their own choosing or in her name to Women Against Abuse or The Breast Cancer Coalition.