Eugene Gaer, a 39-year Manhattan litigator and longtime health care lawyer who chose law as a second career, died on July 7.

He was 74 and suffered from a brief illness, said friend and former colleague Dorothy Heyl, general counsel and chief compliance officer at the investment advisory firm Prima Capital Advisors.

Known as a “lawyer's lawyer” who “just had this fascination with the law,” Gaer began his legal career in 1978 as an associate at Rosenman Colin Freund Lewis & Cohen (now Katten Muchin Rosenman), Heyl said. In 1987, he left the firm to become general counsel at FOJP Service Corp., a health care facility-focused insurance and risk management advisory services company. He used that experience when he opened a solo practice in the 1990s—a practice he continued into this year.