DETROIT • Eugene Driker, a prominent Detroit attorney who helped to mediate the city’s bankruptcy and coalesce support for the Grand Bargain that helped it to emerge from bankruptcy, has died at the age of 85.

Driker died Thursday in his Palmer Woods home surrounded by family, his wife of 63 years, Elaine, confirmed to The Detroit News. A nearly lifelong Detroit resident, Driker was a champion of the city and many of its institutions.

Over the course of more than 50 years of practicing law, he and his firm represented some of the most important corporations in the state of Michigan, but helping to mediate the city of Detroit through its historic bankruptcy in 2013 is one of his most outstanding achievements.

He was one of six mediators. Although he was the only one making up the team who wasn’t a federal judge, Driker was the first call Gerald Rosen, the chief mediator of the bankruptcy and former chief U.S. District judge, made to solicit help in the case.

“Whenever you needed help on a complex case, Eugene was the man to see,” said Rosen, now a JAMS arbitrator.

“To say that Eugene was a giant in both our legal community and the larger Detroit community is a vast understatement . ... His contributions to the success of the mediation were immeasurable on so many levels. Eugene’s wisdom, wit and integrity will be greatly missed by those who knew, him.”

That’s why he was tasked with some of the most difficult parts of the case, such as addressing the city’s unfunded pension liabilities. He also helped raise $866 million for the creation of an independent nonprofit for the Detroit Institute of Arts. The move ensured the museum stayed open and protected its collections from creditors.

In a statement Friday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called Driker “a preeminent attorney, a lifelong and untiring advocate for his home city of Detroit, and a friend.”

Driker was born Feb. 24, 1937, in Detroit. He was the son of Ukrainian immigrants, growing up in a close-knit Jewish community near Dexter and Davison and learning Yiddish as his first language. He met Elaine when they were students at Wayne State University. He asked her to a fraternity party; giving her his pin soon turned into a proposal, and they wed when he was 22 and she was 20.