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Phil, the youngest of the seven children of Leonard A. and Eloise Cervantes, turned 50.

His mother will celebrate her 90th birthday in October.

Older brother Ed turned 60.

Another brother, George, hit the big Six-Five.

On Friday, Leonard P. Cervantes, the oldest of five brothers and two sisters, would have been 70.

He didn’t make it.

The longtime St. Louis trial attorney June 23, while attending a legal conference at the Lake of the Ozarks. He is survived by a longtime companion, Susan Veidt; his daughter, Gaby; his mother; and, of course, his brothers and sisters.

Phil and Leonard had a closeness that belied their age difference.

“We had a unique relationship,� Phil recalls.

Leonard was his youngest brother’s godfather, his confirmation sponsor, the best man at his wedding, and his law partner. “He was my mentor,� Phil says.

Cervantes was also, an outpouring of friends and colleagues told me this week, one helluva trial attorney.

In certain circles these days, particularly legislative ones where some Republican lawmakers are constantly trying to pass laws to make it harder for trial attorneys to represent clients who have been harmed by corporate greed, indifference or malfeasance, the profession is under fire.

But that criticism belies the sort of work most trial attorneys do on a daily basis to make sure that people who have been unfairly harmed — or killed — by somebody’s negligence, have their day in court.

“He wanted to be a voice for the underdog,� Phil says. “He would take cases that two or three other attorneys had turned down. He took pride in doing that.�

Cervantes represented people such as Angela Brannon, who won a civil lawsuit against her landlord after her 3-year-old son, Nathan, died in a fire in an apartment that didn’t have working smoke detectors. Then there was Torrence Mull, the 16-year-old north St. Louis teen who was shot to death in 2001 at a bus stop by a city police officer who never left his police cruiser. Mull had a BB gun in his waistband. At trial, the police officer changed his previous testimony, saying the boy never pointed the BB gun at him. The jury ruled against Mull’s mother in the civil case.

“Lenny lived the last line� of the oath attorneys take when passing the bar, says his longtime friend and colleague Amy Diemer — the one that says “I will practice law to the best of my knowledge and ability and with consideration for the defenseless and oppressed.�

Diemer is the managing attorney for the in St. Louis, which for the past several months has been engaged in a process of helping undocumented immigrants in the region understand their rights. The organization has guided hundreds of families through the process of that protect their children — often citizens of the U.S. even when the mother and father are not — in the case of deportation proceedings.

Cervantes had been offering legal advice and financial support to the effort. He had also encouraged other lawyers to volunteer their time. What Diemer didn’t realize is just how close to his heart the issue of immigration was to the lawyer.

Cervantes’ father, Leonard A. Cervantes, was born in Panhandle, Texas, about a week after his parents crossed the border from Mexico in 1920. The family would work on railroads and in beet fields from Texas to Montana. They eventually settled in Moline, Ill., where they raised eight children. Their oldest son, John — he went by Jack — was born in Mexico. Eventually, Jack would serve in the U.S. Air Force. He became a citizen, and about his childhood: “My Moline, A Young Illegal Immigrant Dreams.�

His little brother, Leonard A., would eventually settle his family in Bettendorf, Iowa. Like four of his brothers, he fought for his country in World War II, earning a Bronze Star. After the war, he was a factory worker who instilled in his children the desire to gain the education he never had.

Three of them became lawyers.

The oldest, Leonard P., would be the first to make the trek to St. Louis, where he graduated from St. Louis University School of Law and went to work representing people like his father, people who often had nowhere else to turn for justice.

His story is the story of an American immigrant family.

Leonard P. Cervantes died at a time when the country is still struggling with the understanding of how and why immigrants come to our shores, often at great personal risk, to seek a better life.

From generation to generation that story continues. This summer, Cervantes’ daughter Gaby, a student at Fordham University, worked as an intern in Diemer’s office, helping the next generation of immigrants have the opportunity created for her by great-grandparents with a dream, and passed on by children and grandchildren who remembered their roots.