Jim Fox, who served as general counsel at HarperCollins Publishers for a decade, died on May 2 after an extended illness. He was 85.
Born on May 2, 1939, in Ellwood City, Pa., he graduated from Northwestern University in 1961 and soon enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he honed his typing skills as a clerk. He began his publishing career in 1966 in the contracts department at Doubleday. In 1970, he joined HarperCollins, then Harper & Row, as director of contracts, and moved to the company's legal department in 1972. Fox spent 35 years at HarperCollins, retiring as general counsel in 2005.
Early in his tenure in the legal department, Fox was involved in two cases, in 1973 and 1977, that set copyright precedents. Both cases were won by Harper & Row; the latter case, against the Nation, went all the way to the Supreme Court.
In PW's 2005 profile of Fox, former HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide president and CEO Jane Friedman called Fox "a legend in his own time."
