Adam Beloff, a Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas judge who died last week, was such a nice guy that you would think it was an act at first, said a longtime Beloff family friend, Municipal Court Judge Joseph Waters Jr.

But once you got to know him, you would realize he really was that nice, Waters said. “He was an incredibly humanistic person whose personal relationships transcended race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation,” Waters said. “He was just that kind of guy who appealed to everybody.”