Murray Shusterman's boss doesn't mind him skiving off from work early. "I like to tease him when I see him walking out at four," says Michael Menkowitz, the managing partner of Fox Rothschild, " 'What is this, a half day, Murray?' "

It's understandable. Yours will probably cut you some slack, too, if you're still coming into the office aged 101.

Shusterman, a Philidelphia corporate and real estate lawyer, was born in the Ukraine in 1912, the same year the Titanic sank. He qualified as an attorney in 1936. He's been lawyering ever since, for 75 years and counting.

During WW2 he deferred the draft 19 times to continue working as government counsel reconfiguring US banks during the Depression. He spent a few years in the 1950s & 60s writing housing and employment law as a solicitor for the city. Aged 50, he moved into private practise.

50 years later, he's still billing. He's toiled long enough to see his old law school auditorium renamed the Murray H Shusterman Hall (he donated $1 million for renovations). He might yet outlast it. Asked why he carries on, Shusterman told the Philidelphia Inquirer, "What? Retire? Sit in a rocking chair and wait to die?" He is, after all, still a good decade younger than the oldest American, who is 115 (staggeringly, she was born in 1899. Though she's stopped working).


Shusterman, two months shy of 102

One of Shusterman's three sons, 72, said the key to his father's longevity was simple: "stubborness". That seems accurate. When people try to congratulate Shusterman on his years, "I say, 'For what?' Did I just win a big case? If you want to congratulate someone, congratulate my great-great-great-great-grandfather who gave me the genes.' "

There's a price to pay for his great age. Most of the people he loves are dead. His wife of 65 years died in 2005. His siblings are all gone, and so are his friends.

A middle-aged Shusterman (centre) in the 1950s

But his love of the law prevails. Shusterman says it embodies, "the dynamics of living, the progress or retrogressing that we're involved in".

As for life lessons, "the real secret is to be decent, to be fair, and to be forgiving - now and then even a friend will do something that annoys you. And don't take yourself too seriously".