Mark Schlefer, who helped write FOIA legislation, dies at 98 Louie Estrada From a young age, maritime and shipping lawyer Mark P. Schlefer liked to challenge authority. Why, he asked as a child, did he have to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance at his elementary school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan? Why, he asked at 22, wasn’t he allowed inside an officers’ club in France for a glass of champagne to toast Germany’s surrender at the end of World War II, especially after surviving 36 combat missions as a bombardier-navigator? Why, he asked a few years later as a young father, was it that the Washington-area private schools attended by his children largely excluded Black students?