GREENSBORO — Bob Cone saw the world through possibilities.
In helping to resettle refugees.
By encouraging pro bono work among attorneys.
Even in the pioneering cancer treatment for the aggressive and rare tumor he was battling.
In 2014, that aggressive tumor was smothering the organs in its path when he undertook the pioneering treatment.
He was able to outlive his diagnosis by a couple of years.
“Some people give up when (doctors) say there’s nothing (they) can do,” Cone had said of being told he likely had just a few months to live. “I just wasn’t ready to do that.”
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After his death, his family wanted to continue his work and outlook through a justice fund, which requires a minimum $50,000 contribution. To that end, the Robert C. Cone Justice Fund has been established by the North Carolina Bar Foundation Endowment in memory of the longtime Greensboro attorney, who died in 2017 at age 65. Cone’s widow and their children, Sam and Laurie, saw the fund as an extension of his work in the community and beyond, where he built a legacy with little fanfare.
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Sally Cone said her husband, who she met when both were in law school, believed deeply in the North Carolina Bar Foundation’s values of access to justice, service, education and professionalism. The money is being pooled with other funds in the endowment and supports, among other things, organizations that provide pro bono legal services.
“Much of what they do is try to level the playing field as far as the administration of justice is concerned,” she said of the bar foundation. “And that was so important to Bob.
“Sam, Laurie and I are certain Bob would be pleased that those values will be furthered in his name.”
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Cone, a Morehead Scholar at UNC, was a partner in one of the state’s most prominent litigation firms and a former president of the Greensboro Bar Association.
People who knew him are reminded of his early relatives who immigrated to the United States in the 1800s. They came with a blueprint of hopes in the form of a letter from those who saw them off. Cone’s ancestors include textile magnates Ceasar and Moses Cone, who are among Greensboro’s most-recognized patrons.
Bob Cone kept a copy of the letter, passed down through generations, expressing the hope that if they became wealthy in the New World “do not let anybody call you a miser, but be known as a philanthropist.”
The former president of his synagogue lived by those words.
After law school, he quickly earned a reputation as a sharp, thoughtful litigator with a high success rate. But he also helped found the Herb Falk Society of the Greensboro Bar Association, which promotes pro bono service.
“He was a man of integrity,” recalled lawyer and friend David Meschan.
In 2016, he and Sally were awarded the National Council of Community and Justice of the Piedmont’s highest honor for work largely behind the scenes of repairing frays in the fabric of their city.
Cone previously served as the regional chair of the Anti-Defamation League and supported the work of Cone Health Foundation; the Interactive Resource Center and Greensboro Urban Ministry; and other local organizations that touch a wide swath of people, including the United Way of Greater Greensboro.
He was also the recipient of the Whitney M. Young Jr. Service Award from the Boy Scouts of America for promoting diversity and bringing scouting to lower-income neighborhoods in Greensboro.
And he was a fighter.
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He was diagnosed in 2016 with dedifferentiated liposarcoma, which is extremely rare and affects about 2,000 people in the country a year.
Doctors said there was nothing more they could do.
It was not only spreading over his organs, but the mass was wrapped around the superior mesenteric artery, which controls the blood supply to the small intestine and most of the colon.
So there he was in New York City at the insistence of friends who were doctors, listening to a specialist named one of “16 Geniuses Who Give Us Hope” by Esquire magazine about a little-known medical procedure. The surgeon, Dr. Tomoaki Kato, described a potentially 18-hour nonstop operation to reach and remove organs that cannot be treated any other way, put them in a solution on a separate table, cut away the tumor and damaged tissue, and then put all of the organs that could be saved back in place.
“I had known Dr. Kato — at this point — for five minutes,” Cone said back then. “It sounded like science fiction to me.”
Kato, a pioneer in multi-organ transplants, had performed the procedure on a few dozen people. He told Cone that could mean removing his intestine, colon and probably his pancreas and liver, among other organs or portions of them.
Of course, Kato wouldn’t actually know until he opened Cone up.
Doing nothing meant that Cone likely had just months to live.
The surgery was a success, but Kato also told him the cancer could come back.
“I was telling people I was cured in hopes I was, but he never promised me anything,” Cone said at the time.
He eventually was able to go back to work full-time.
Then the cancer came back.
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This time, Cone tried different chemotherapy treatments.
Soon, he stopped asking doctors what stage of cancer he was enduring. “I am enjoying every day,” he said then.
He was also optimistic.
At work part-time, he took on cases that interested him. Outside the office, he spent time with family and friends, showing up at community events and with groups he supported as long as he could.
It was then that he spoke with tears in his eyes about one day taking his Sally on a river cruise.
“I couldn’t have taken this on without her,” Cone said then. “She is always at my side.”
And now she is again honoring him through a profession and possibilities.
‘He was concerned that while maybe we have the best justice system in the world, it’s not good enough — yet,” Sally said. “That we need to make it better and more fair.”