Stephen E. Appell

Both Cornell ILR School and Rutgers Law School prepared me well for a career in labor law, dedicated to the cause of workers’ rights and well-being.  In 1968, I entered employment with the National Labor Relations Board and thereafter became a Trial Specialist.  My legal service with the NLRB in Brooklyn was augmented by official capacities with the NLRB Union, including as national Executive Vice-President, in which I fought hard to advance the dignity and welfare of both our professional and support-staff employees.  In 1980, I became a Supervisory Attorney with NLRB in New York.  In 1985, I entered the private sector with firms representing unions and workers, becoming a partner in 1990. With the firms, I was particularly involved in NLRB proceedings, arbitrations, Federal-court litigation and collective bargaining. In 1997, I returned to New York NLRB, as Trial Specialist and mentor.  After retirement from full-time work in 2004, I served “of counsel” to a union-side firm from 2005 to 2008.

In 1970, I married Madeleine Arbett, who had a distinguished career as an educator and school administrator; she served as Principal of High School of Art and Design in New York.  We moved into our present house in Brooklyn in 1974.  Our sons are Sanford, a producer with Major League Baseball television in Secaucus; Bradley, a public school teacher in Brooklyn; and Andrew, an architect turned real estate agent in Brooklyn. Four grandchildren are now a valued part of our life.  Our beloved beagle Chester was with us from 1998 until 2012.

Retirement has been filled with meaningful voluntary pursuits.  I teach at Brooklyn Lifelong Learning, a retirees’ program at Brooklyn College.  My series on Significant Presidential Elections began several years ago with Jefferson’s election in 1800 and I am now up to the election of 1964.  In the past two decades, I have been active with East Midwood Jewish Center, serving as Ritual Chair for 17 years and as an officer and trustee.  A great thrill has been to fill in as service leader, and prepare and deliver sermons on such topics as concern for the stranger and the poor, the dignity of labor, kindness to animals, the environment, American Jewry and its role in the fight for justice, and historical figures from Moses, Biblical king Josiah and the Maccabees through Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King.  Other activities have included serving as historian and co-correspondent for the Cornell Class of 1965; walking and befriending dogs at the Sean Casey Animal Rescue in Brooklyn; serving as scorekeeper for the PS 282 basketball team coached by son Bradley; following and supporting the basketball teams of Cornell and Rutgers-Newark; pursuing my interests in music, whether classical, pop, or rock; and reading American, Jewish, Black, labor and world history..

I continue to enjoy involvement in Rutgers-Newark alumni activities and am gratified by the growing vitality of the City of Newark.

I retain fond memories and appreciation of our School and its faculty, especially Professors Arthur Kinoy and Saul Mendlovitz and Dean Willard Heckel, and their devotion to scholarship and activism in the service of freedom, justice and peace.

Bill Bender 

We were fortunate at Rutgers to be exposed to many of the cutting-edge ideas in constitutional litigation, as the nation was then struggling with the unfinished promises of the Wartime Amendments.

Fifty years later, I find myself working with the same ideas, albeit, in a more difficult political climate. Currently, Rita and I are co-counsel in a federal law suit in Mississippi, seeking to bring equity in public education for the African American school children of that State. The law suit is premised on the transformative nature of the Wartime amendments and enabling legislation, many of the same ideas we grappled with as students.

After graduation, I was one of the early staff counsel at the Center for Constitutional Rights and then was very fortunate to be clinical faculty at the law school in the Constitutional Litigation Clinic.

In 1975, Rita, our two young children and I picked up roots and relocated to Seattle. After a five-year stint as Federal Public Defender, I joined my current law firm. Over the ensuing years, the firm developed a practice of representing design professionals, municipal project and owners and specialty contractors on the issues they faced in large infrastructure projects.

Our firm has always been supportive of public interest work and I was able to continue to represent folks involved in issues of public importance.

In 2009-2010, with the support of our firm, Rita and I had appointments as visiting faculty at the University of Mississippi Law School where we spent a year doing research and taught a course on the deliberate denial of public education for African Americans. We have continued with this work since then, including teaching a course at Seattle University School of Law, lecturing and pursuing our research and some writing.

I continue with our law firm and enjoy mentoring our younger colleagues as they continue to grow our practice. I also regularly serve as an arbitrator and mediator, mostly for cases arising out of the construction industry and for securities law cases.

We are the proud grandparents of five boys. Our daughter, Johanna is now a superior court judge in Seattle and our son Gabriel is an attorney and chief privacy officer for the Seattle Blue Cross affiliate.

Rita Bender

I look back at my experiences at Rutgers with an understanding that they were unique. As students we had the benefit of some outstanding professors, and the opportunity to develop friendships which enriched our adult lives.

After law school I worked briefly at the New Jersey ACLU street law program, the Community Legal Action Workshop, and thereafter at the Public Defender office in Newark. When Rutgers started the clinical law programs, I taught in the Poverty Law Clinic which Annamay Sheppard directed. What a wonderful mentor she was.

In 1975, Bill and I moved to Seattle on a dare. (We had visited there and thought we had never seen a place so beautiful. We said we would seek jobs and move if either of us was successful, but each believed the other wouldn’t leave the clinics.) We both were offered positions in Seattle and off we went.

I practiced in the Seattle/King County Public Defenders’ office for a short time and then was the Regional Director of the Legal Services Corporation, until going into private practice. I was invited to join Skellenger Bender, P.S. in 1990, and have been with that firm since. Over the years my practice has involved legal ethics, family law, including adoption and issues of assisted reproduction. I have been active on state bar committees, recently participating in the creation of Limited Licensed Legal Technicians (LLLT) in the state, whereby technicians may provide legal assistance to clients pursuant to the rules approved by the state Supreme Court. Because our firm has always been supportive of public interest and pro bono work, I have had latitude to represent low income client of a variety of issues.

When the opportunity arose to accept an appointment at the University of Mississippi Law School in 2009-10 for the academic year, both Bill and I were eager to do so. We taught a course on the deliberate denial of education for African American children, and we researched in the extensive university archives. Upon our return to Seattle, we were invited to teach a similar course at Seattle University School of Law. Presently we are co-counsel with the Southern Poverty Law Center on a challenge to the continuing denial of education, premised in part upon the state’s abrogation of promises made in the 1868 Readmission Act as a condition of readmission to the Union.

Bill has described our family, all of whom are “above average.”

Marc E. Berson

Marc E. Berson is a dedicated and established lawyer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist with a focus in operating manufacturing, and service businesses and real estate development. He has been Chairman of The Fidelco Group and of the Fidelco Realty Group since he founded them in 1981.

Under Mr. Berson’s leadership, Fidelco has completed many noteworthy transactions such as the acquisition of Modernfold, Inc. in 1985 which he sold to Maiden Lane Associates in 1990; and the 1986 acquisition of National Car Rental Systems, Inc., which at the time was the largest car rental system in the world. National was sold to General Motors Corporation in 1992. From 1995 when Kirker Enterprises was acquired until its sale to RPM Industries in 2012, Fidelco's primary corporate emphasis was in the custom contract manufacturing of nail enamel and other cosmetic products for major brands worldwide. Mr. Berson was Chairman of Kirker Enterprises, Inc., the world's largest producer of nail enamel, and of Clinical Formula, LLC, which manufactures dermatological products. Manufacturing facilities for these companies were located in New Jersey, California and Scotland. Mr. Berson was an active participant in the management of these and other businesses.

Fidelco Realty Group is an owner-developer of residential, commercial, retail and industrial properties in the New Jersey, New York, Florida and Ohio markets. Under Mr. Berson's direction, Fidelco has been an active investor not only in new construction but also in properties which require rehabilitation, repositioning and/or environmental remediation.

Capitalizing on Fidelco's success developing distinct destinations in overlooked inner-city neighborhoods, Berson has invested in a wide-range of properties in urban areas throughout the country, including in his birthplace and the center of his civic and philanthropic endeavors -

Newark, N.J. One prime example is his acquisition, renovation and leasing of the 400,000-square foot 1 Washington Park office building, which has served as a spark to the resurgence of the city's North Broad Street corridor and activated a new gateway to the city's downtown. He worked hand-in-hand with Rutgers University's Newark campus in its efforts to build a new world-class business school in 1 Washington Park. Since the 1 Washington Park redevelopment, he has completed in Newark the redevelopment of RockPlaza Lofts (eight buildings adjacent to the Prudential Center Arena), 494 Broad Street (a 200,000-square foot office complex with a 635-space parking garage across the street from 1 Washington Park), and the conversion of the old Presbyterian church at James Street and Washington Street in Newark for a headquarters facility for Audible.com which will be finished in December 2018.

Matching the passion he brings to his work at Fidelco, Berson is also dedicated to serving the community through his involvement in numerous nonprofit and community organizations, especially in Newark. He has played an integral role in supporting some of the city's key institutions, reflecting his long-time belief in and support of Newark's resurgence.

Since 1991 he has played a critical role in all aspects of building, operating and funding the New Jersey Performing Arts Center as a founding Member of its Board of Trustees and Member of its Executive Committee, and continues to stay actively involved in advancing NJPAC's standards of excellence.

Berson co-founded over 22 years ago and is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Opportunity Project, Inc, a not-for-profit organization aiding in the rehabilitation and empowerment of people with brain injuries. He spearheaded the building of a new 14,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art Clubhouse in Millburn, one of only 15 such facilities in the United States, which provides vocational, educational and recreational services for adults with brain injuries.

For over 16 years, Berson has been Chairman of Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and the Childen’s Hospital of New Jersey, one of the region's premier tertiary care medical centers. He has guided The Beth to achieve new heights and numerous awards in health care, and helped position the hospital as a neighborhood economic engine in the city’s South Ward. At The Beth, during his time as Chairman, the hospital has been recognized with Solucient’s Nationwide 100 Top Hospitals award for Performance Improvement Leaders and for Cardiovascular Performance.

Currently, Mr. Berson serves as Vice Chair of RWJ Barnabas Health, New Jersey’s largest healthcare system. He was a former member of the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, of the Board of Trustees of the Papermill Playhouse, of the Board of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations of Seton Hall University, and a public member of the New Jersey Redevelopment Authority.

Mr. Berson's contributions and service have been recognized with numerous honors and awards including NJPAC Chambers Award for Service to the Community and Arts; Newark Beth Israel Medical Center's Partners in Progress Corporate Award; the Boys & Girls Clubs of Newark Award for Caring; the Newark Little League Larry Doby Community Service Award; Essex County's "Star of Essex" Award; the New Jersey Institute of Social Justice Corporate Leadership Award, and the Rutgers School of Law- Newark Distinguished Alumni Award. Mr. Berson also delivered the commencement address to the 2011 Graduating Class of the Rutgers Business School; has been honored by the Rutgers University Law School’s board room having been named the “Berson Board Room”, as well as a prominent lecture hall at the Rutgers University Business School having been named “Berson Hall” and the NJPAC second floor promenade named for his family. Additionally, Newark Beth Israel Hospital has renamed its community award “The Marc E. Berson Community Award.”

Prior to devoting himself full-time to The Fidelco Group and philanthropic activities, Berson, a practicing attorney since 1968, served a diverse group of individual and corporate clients in tax, securities, real estate and financial matters. He established Shapiro, Berson and Atlas in 1969 and that firm grew to a 15-lawyer firm, Gutkin, Miller, Shapiro and Berson. He retired in 1981 setting up a small 2-man firm to serve his own businesses. In 1985 he became of Counsel to Budd Larner; in 1991 he became of Counsel to Stern and Greenberg, and finally, since 2009 he has been of Counsel to Stone & Magnanini.

Berson received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers College in New Brunswick and his J.D. from Rutgers Law Center in Newark. He lives in Millburn, N.J. with his wife and has three children and five grandchildren.

Steve Bosin

I graduated Rutgers University in New Brunswick New Jersey as a Dean’s list student and President of the Senior Class. I then graduated Rutgers Law School in Newark, N.J. where I was a research assistant to Professor Ruth Ginsburg, now of the U.S. Supreme Court. I then earned a Masters in Corporate Law from the New York University School of Law.

Following a judicial clerkship I became a trial attorney for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in its New York Regional Office.

After several years I moved on to become an associate with Carpenter, Bennett and Morrissey, a large corporate law firm in Newark, New Jersey.  I then left to join the law department of Curtiss-Wright, a New York stock exchange listed aerospace company, rising to become Associate General Counsel. In 1999 I left to establish my own practice specializing in commercial transactions, employment law  and ERISA matters. I then developed a sub-specialty in the areas of long term disability claims. In the long term disability field I have lectured and written on various topics and am responsible for the successful  outcome of many important and substantial cases including Sedgwick v. Connors,  796 F. Supp. 2nd  568 (2011) which is now relied on by many practitioners in the field.

I am a member of the bar of the States of New Jersey, New York and California and a former member of the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association.  I have successfully handled a wide range of employment matters including:

  1. Whistle blower claims,
  2. Sexual harassment claims,
  3. Non-competition claims,
  4. Breach of contract,
  5. Wage and hour,
  6. Denial of State Pension benefits,
  7. Unemployment benefits,
  8. Discrimination, e.g.  Age, race, disability and pregnancy.

Christopher C. Burdett

In early 1968 I had been told by Dean Heckel that I would be the first Rutgers Law School graduate ever to clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Brennan), only to have that selection fail to materialize when Justice Brennan became ill and his staff selected his law clerks from Yale and Harvard, as had always been his practice. Then, with Arthur Kinoy’s tremendous assistance and support, I was offered a position as the first staff counsel in the history of the national office of the ACLU, only to have that job vanish when the ACLU was unable to fund it.

Eventually, after taking the New York Bar I began an eight-year odyssey with the Legal Aid Society of the City of New York, first as Associate Appellate Counsel handling appeals in the Appellate Division and the New York Court of Appeals, and then as a trial attorney in the Criminal Defense Division in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Over the next three years I tried several hundred bench trials and more than sixty jury trials in the New York City Criminal Courts, the New York Supreme Court and the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Perhaps the most notable, and certainly the most enjoyable, of those cases included the first jury trial in New York city following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Duncan v. Louisana, the defense of one of the 21 Black Panthers charged with conspiring to bomb various sites in Manhattan (I was able to convince N.Y. District Attorney Frank Hogan that the not guilty verdicts in the original trial constituted a de facto determination that there had been no conspiracy, and the charges were all dismissed), the defense of a young Playboy centerfold who had been made a pawn in a scheme to obtain sizable cash refunds for the return of luxury items purchased with stolen and forged credit cards (I was able to take her through the entire criminal process and to have her sentenced to unsupervised probation without her ever being formally arrested or fingerprinted), the defense of Philippe Petite, the “Man on Wire,” when he was arrested for walking a high wire between the Twin Towers (all charges were dropped in return for a free performance in Central Park), and the defense of a postman indicted in the Southern District for theft of a rifle from the mail he was supposed to be delivering which had been manufactured and shipped by Remington Arms, the company of which my father was president at the time (he’d be rolling over in his grave today, believe me, but that’s another story.) In late 1974 I became the Assistant Attorney in Charge of the Civil Division of the Legal Aid Society and then acting Attorney-in-Charge, and two years later I returned to the Criminal Division as an Assistant Attorney-in-Charge of the entire Manhattan Criminal Defense Division, overseeing a pilot program in “vertical continuity,” the representation of a defendant by one attorney from arraignment through final disposition.

In 1975 I returned to Connecticut, became a member of the Connecticut bar and began practicing with a prominent Fairfield trial attorney and former judge, engaging primarily in personal injury litigation. After two years I moved to a small litigation firm in Stamford, and then in 1980 I opened my own office. Except for a two-year period in the early 1990's as the senior partner in a three-lawyer litigation firm, I have had a solo practice ever since, preferring the autonomy, independence and direct one-on-one client relationships which such a practice allows. For a number of years I specialized in traumatic brain injury cases, and for some reason I seemed to attract musicians as clients, including the Average White Band and Corky Laing, the drummer of Mountain. While I have handled many other types of litigation over the past 40 years, including criminal defense, personal injury, medical and legal malpractice, commercial law and land-use regulation, since 2006 with one very notable exception my practice has been limited to matrimonial and family law. The one exception was Kortner v. Martise, a civil case which represents as much as any why I became a lawyer. The case went on for over 13 years, and involved representing a mentally and physically handicapped woman who had become the victim of an internet sexual predator. It was tried to a jury twice, with a lengthy and complex appeal intervening, and ultimately resulted in a sizable verdict.

The appeal in Kortner resulted in a 93-page Connecticut Supreme Court decision which among other things clarified Connecticut law regarding the pre-marking trial exhibits. I have handled several other significant appeals, including Worsham v. Griefenberger, in which the Connecticut Supreme Court found the entire Connecticut workers’ compensation statute unconstitutional on due process grounds but then, surprisingly, read a provision into the statute which literally was not there in order to correct the due process infirmity. I sent this decision to Arthur Kinoy, who later used it in the constitutional litigation clinic. I was also trial counsel in several divorce cases which later resulted in significant Connecticut Appellate Court decisions, including Porter v. Thrane, Stahl v. Bayliss, and the recent case of Oldani v. Oldani, which advanced Connecticut law regarding the enforceability of pre-nuptial agreements. In addition, I have served as a Special Master for the Connecticut Superior Court in both civil and family matters, and as a Fact Finder and Attorney Trial Referee in the civil side of the court, as Special Counsel for Litigation for the City of Norwalk from 1986 to 1988, and as a private mediator in both civil and family cases. Although I’ve intentionally begun to slow down, I still have an active family law practice.

On the non-professional side, in 1976 I began collecting Native American art and artifacts, and I now have a small museum-quality collection. In the mid-80's I began bicycle racing under the auspices of US Cycling Federation/USA Cycling, qualified twice to compete in the USCF national criterium championships, and continued to race as a master and grand master until my right knee gave out several years ago. I also became heavily involved in motorcycling, rode across country in 1975, and now do long-distance touring, weekend “canyon carving,” track riding, and off-road dual sport riding every chance I get. I have three wonderful children - Michael, 53, Jen 35 and Sophia, 31, who are absolutely the loves of my life - and four incredible grandchildren.

James J. Capone, Jr.

I am still working full time as a tenured full Professor of Business Law and Accountancy at Kean University, Union, New Jersey.  At Kean I instruct courses in Accounting and Business Law.

My education in addition to Rutgers Law includes an AB in Government from Georgetown University and an MBA in Accounting also from Rutgers University.

I owe a lot to Rutgers.

Prior to entering the teaching profession I served as a Captain in the Army from 1970 to 1972. I was the adjutant of the 4 squadron of the 7th cavalry, which was General George Armstrong Custer’s unit. After that I was a Staff Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers) in New York City.

I did practice law with an office in Hackettstown and later in Westfield. In what seems a lifetime ago I served as Township Attorney for Liberty Township and Attorney for the Stanhope Planning Board.

Since 1980 I have served as the Director Kean University Real Estate Institute and I am licensed by the New Jersey Real Estate Commission as a Real Estate Instructor.

Today my law practice is limited to my research agenda at Kean which is in the area of the Consumer Fraud Act as it applies to Real Estate Brokers and Salespersons.

I have been voted “Teacher of the Year” by Alpha Sigma Lambda Students Honor Society and also “Teacher of the Year” by the Kean University Accounting Society.

My community service includes serving as a Councilman and Finance Chair on the Westfield, NJ Town Council and currently as President and Trustee of the Westfield Memorial Library.

I am married to Annette (Esposito) Capone for 46 years. She is a retired Elementary School teacher who had a distinguished career as an educator in the Bayonne, New Jersey. We still reside in Westfield.

We have a son, Christopher Capone, who is a partner with the law firm of Fisher Phillips and a daughter-in-law Meghan Offer, who an associate with Reed Smith. They have two children, our grandsons Connell 4 and Keegan 2.

 Our daughter Kerry Adorno lives in Massachusetts and works for Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. Her husband our son-in-law Michael, is with TJX Corporation. They have 2 Children our granddaughters Ryan Emilie 8 and Madeleine 2. 

My wife and I are sorry we will not be able to attend because our granddaughter Ryan is making her First Holy Communion on May 12 in Ashland, Mass.

Regards and best wishes to all.

Priscilla Read Chenoweth

Having spent years in the civil rights movement, I was the chairman of the Middlesex County Economic Opportunities Corporation when I entered Rutgers Law School (at age 35). Dean Willard Heckel persuaded me to leave that post for my law books. During the summers I wrote briefs for Wilentz, Goldman and Spitzer and I was on Rutgers Law Review. In my work with MCEOC I had succeeded in establishing the Legal Services Corporation office Middlesex County, so I went to work for it. However, I was very interested in the state employees’ being allowed to create an organization and, after about a year, I became a deputy attorney general for the Public Employment Relations Commission. (It was never, ever, called a union—the Legislature and Governor Hughes made it very clear that no employees could even think about going out on strike.) About a year later, a Republican Governor won and could replace Attorney General Arthur J. Sills. PERC had settled down by that time, and when Sills invited me to join him as an associate in a firm he was forming in Perth Amboy, I said yes. (My family’s home was in Metuchen, and Perth Amboy is closer than Trenton.) However, the firm Sills had created dissolved; he went to Newark and I ended up as a solo in Metuchen. For about three years, I handled matrimonial cases, municipalities, and gave assistance to a Public Defender.

I read in The New Jersey Law Journal an ad for a new managing editor. I applied and got the job; it was in announced in 1974. I was the only lawyer for all of the work, although I had a proof reader. They still had a linotypes and presses on the premises. In about four years, another lawyer came. Then Stephen Brill bought the Journal in 1985 and expanded it; under a new managing editor, I was called the head of the digest section. In the later 1970s more appellate opinions were approved for publication. Working on the digest section was very hard, but Brill hired an assistant editor; later came another assistant. Am-Law bought the Journal as a large expansion, and in time changed the way I had worked on digests; I retired in 2005.

All of us had telecommuted. Since I could do the digests at any time of the day, I had some available time for doing some pro bonos. A few organizations asked me to write an amicus for the famous custody case, Baby M. My brief called for a custody hearing; the New Jersey Supreme Court’s ruling called for that. I then did some other pro bono cases.

In December 1990, when I lived in Kearny and I read the Hudson County newspaper about Luis Kevin Rojas, who lived in Weehawken but was being tried in Manhattan. The crime occurred on downtown Broadway at 2:07 am between two groups of Hispanic young men. One group were students and workers (some had drunk too much); the other, one wore a bright orange jacket and had a gun—and one of them in a green jacket took the gun, shot into the fleeing group and hit two, one died.

Rojas and Carlos Cajas was in the area for a late dinner at BBQ; they walked down 9th street and waited for a while for the PATH train, but were taken off it because an attacked youth had called for police, saying “Hispanic in an Orange Jacket.” The trial lawyer told the paper that Rojas had been misidentified because he wore a bright orange jacket, but the lawyer didn’t say that at trial and put Rojas into the crime’s scene. Rojas was convicted as an accomplice after seven witnesses misidentified him. The next day, a teacher at the high school where Rojas was a senior, told the newspaper again that “Looey” was such a good student that no one could consider him as being in any wrongdoing. The teacher said to the paper that people were needed to help bring an appeal. My daughter and I called him and asked to meet with us and explain this.

After he did, I went to Rikers to meet him; I believed he was innocent but told him that I was a New Jersey lawyer so I couldn’t help, although maybe I could find a helpful New York lawyer. I asked a few in the criminal field; they said no. A friend of Luis’ father found one, but after I bought the court reporter’s transcript, I realized that there were no appealable issues. The Rojas family finally agreed to leave the one who wanted to bring an appeal and wouldn’t ask the judge for a hearing; it had to be done for a post-conviction relief on the grounds of ineffective assistance and newly discovered evidence. I was admitted pro hac to represent Rojas. I can’t describe everything that went on, or the few people who got involved in it with me, for seven years. In 1992 I filed a 105-page brief, asking for and then being granted a hearing for the next summer. I had 14 witnesses for Rojas and a very unpleasant district prosecutor; the trial judge denied us. One have to get permission to appeal but I didn’t know how to get it. I finally found a duo who could do it but insisted that I yield my name to the case; Luis wanted me to write with them and approve the brief—I did, and my name is not on the brief. In July 1995 the appeal won and Luis was out on bail. He and I chose a NY trial lawyer; there were hearings but the trial was not until October 1998, when he was acquitted. The trial lawyer and I were on The New York’s Times front page, calling me “Persevering Woman.” After the civil court was given the required “clear and convincing evidence,” Luis was compensated by the New York State. He had a job with computers and went to New Jersey Institute of Technology at night to become an electrical engineer. We have remained fast friends.

Nicholas Conforti

Judicial clerkship with Hon. John W. Fritz Sept. 1968 to August 1969; general practice of law Sept. 1969 to March 1983; municipal court judge-June 1972 to March 1983 in Sussex, Byram, and Sparta in  Sussex County; Superior Court Judge March 1983 to November 2013; now retired & on recall to the Superior Court. Married to Sheila (nee) Horan for thirty years; we have six adult children between us and thirteen grandchildren.

George Dougherty

As for post-Rutgers enriching experiences, first was my clerkship with Judges Thomas O’Brien and Arthur Simpson (Bergen Cty) followed by two years as D.A.G. under Arthur Sills and George Kugler. I started out in the 6-attorney Criminal Investigation Sect. before transitioning to the expansive Div. of Crim. Justice for the Cahill administration’s War on Crime. Those were heady days. Besides superseding County Pros. Offices (taking cases from the investigation stage to the Grand Jury, to trial and appeal) and prosecuting St. Police municipal court matters, I was assigned agency duties such as the Horse Racing Comm., Med. Examiner, State Police and the new Bureau of Securities. In October, 1971, I left the less exciting work of preparing wiretap logs for trial (by others) to become classmate Bob Gladstone’s Ass’t. Trenton City Atty. and formed my partnership with Jerry Katz (Class of 67). In 1975 I became City Attorney and married Alicia Marin (Rutgers Nursing ’68), then a Sen. Staff Pediatric R.N. at New York Hospital. Never thinking that we would grow roots in Trenton, we are both civically active and rooted, no children, but a retinue of rescue cats. The practice (KatzandDougherty.com ) is general, concentrating in Cemetery Law and Consumer Fraud (after the publication of Gennari v. Weichert, and continuing with Allen v. V&A Bros). After leaving City Hall in 1990, my municipal practice continued with the City Parking Auth. Counsel for Lawrence Tp, (1992-4) during which time I served as Local Govt Law Sec. Chair. In support of Trenton’s civic groups,I made several trips to the Sup. Ct. to enforce referendum protest rights (You Can Fight City Hall) During all this time I have managed to find time for art, music (Dixieland and Concert bands), flying, skiing and tennis. Retirement is not on the radar screen.

Robert Gladstone

My wife, Barbara, and I met in college, and were married before I started law school.  We both worked during my time in law school.  Barbara received a Masters’ degree at about the same time as I graduated.  The Trenton/Princeton area was convenient to both our families and well-known to us, so Mrs. Hoffman arranged for a job with a Trenton law firm.  It was a killer of a job, but I got lots of courtroom time and spent lots of hours working as a young associate.  Good training, but good to leave.  I left after three years to put out a shingle and earn a part-time salary as the lowest level associate in the Trenton City Attorney’s office.

It was my good fortune to gain the respect of the City Council and the Mayor, so when the existing City Attorney decided to move on, I was asked to take the position at age 29.  The job was technically part time, so I took my nascent practice and clients to a small, but very fine new Princeton firm, and became its part-time litigator.  When the mayor finished his first term and was re-elected, it was time to move on.  My assistant, friend and classmate, George Dougherty, took my place.  I then joined the Princeton firm as a partner and full-time head of litigation.

After some satisfying years with the Princeton firm, I decided to join forces with some other lawyers who were first-rate professionals.  We formed a new firm.  My role was to be the principal litigator.  Thanks to a partner, Leo Motiuk, I began handling some fairly significant environmental litigation.  The firm grew nicely, and eventually was absorbed by Shanley and Fisher – which later was absorbed by Drinker, Biddle and Reath.  I served as a partner at both firms.

While raising a family and working, I felt the need to become involved in community activities.  In the early ‘80’s, I ran the (unsuccessful) campaign for the Mercer County Republican candidate for County Executive. I followed that up with becoming Republican County Chairman.  During my tenure in that position, we took control of Mercer County for the first time in more than 20 years.  In the late ‘90’s, I became Chair of the Board of Trustees of The College of New Jersey.  My tenure was highlighted by hiring a talented woman to be President of The College.  I recently spoke at her retirement celebration.  Along the way, I was selected for membership on the Supreme Court Committee for the Tax Court, Chair of the NJBA Committee for Property Taxation, and Chair of the Local Government Law Section.

During the Shanley/Drinker period, I was fortunate to be elected by a group of lawyers for mostly Fortune 500 companies to preside as Chair of two Superfund (hazardous waste cleanup) sites, with which I worked until my recent retirement.  I ultimately moved my clientele and became “of counsel” to a firm known as Szaferman/Lakind in Lawrenceville -- a quality firm that supported my practice and facilitated my retirement.

Barbara and I raised two great kids, and now have four wonderful grandchildren.  We are retired, living in Florida, and dealing with all the doctors whom we visit far too often.  But overall – life is good!  Best wishes to all.

Jospeh A. Hallock

I was an Administrative Judge with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, New York Field Office, in New York City from September 1992 until December 31, 2010, when I retired. I was also certified as a mediator for the Board’s Mediation Appeals Program. From October 1990 until I joined the Board, I served as the Regional Counsel of the Small Business Administration (SBA), New York Regional Office, in New York City. In this capacity, I oversaw the provision of legal services for program operations in the regional office and five district offices with a staff of approximately 18 professional employees.

From 1978 until becoming Regional Counsel, I held other attorney positions with the SBA. In 1983, I was appointed a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in connection with the receivership of a small business investment company licensed by the SBA. Before joining the SBA, I was engaged in the private practice of law in New Jersey.

I live in Verona, New Jersey with my wife, Dinah Hendon, where I am a member of the Verona Historic Preservation Commission. We are visited often by my adult stepchildren, Sam and Daisy. I have a two-year old great-niece, Annabelle. I also have a one-year old great-niece, Sofia, and great-nephew, Jonathan, who are twins for whom I happily babysit.

R. Michael Haynes

Rutgers Law School established the foundation for what has turned out to be an unplanned but fascinating journey that began in New York, led me back to New Jersey, and finally brought me to the nation’s capital.

New York (1968-1976)Off to the Big Apple!  After graduation, and a year with a NYC Madison Avenue law firm (long hours and relatively unrewarding work, but good Wall Street law firm starting pay), I decided to follow my passion to become trial attorney.  That started with my appointment as an Assistant DA in the legendary office of Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan.  In the early years, I was in court all day, every day learning the art of litigating criminal cases; and once every 3 or 4 months I was assigned to handle Night Court, which was responsible for arraignments of defendants arrested in all five boroughs of the City and brought to Manhattan.   Exciting, absolutely!  After progressing through the office and successfully litigating some major cases, I was assigned to the Rackets Bureau, which was responsible for investigating organized crime and public corruption cases. The Rackets Bureau is where the DA’s Office had established its legendary crime fighting reputation and where I successfully prosecuted, among others, a member of the Gambino crime family, a mob attorney for bribery, and two police officers on corruption charges.  Not surprisingly, all of these matters ended up in jury trials against some of the city’s best defense attorneys.  Ultimately, I was appointed Deputy Chief of Rackets Bureau.  Thereafter, when the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor of New York City was created, I became its Executive Assistant DA, responsible for directing the office’s major narcotics investigations, selectively litigating major cases, and managing our city-wide staff of twenty-five prosecutors.

Most important while in NYC, this is where I met and married my wife Anne Marie (Portuguese and speaks 6 languages), and where we had our daughter Michelle, who speaks 5 languages, is a Wellesley cum laud graduate, earned both Masters and Ph.D. degrees from NYU, and is currently an Associate Professor of Psychology at U. Mass. – plus she’s given us two fantastic grandchildren!

New Jersey (1976-1979)So why back to New Jersey?  During this period, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey was recognized as one of the leading US Attorney Offices in the country.  It was sometimes referred to by some as “Hogan South” since it had a history of bringing to the office attorneys (the first being Herb Stern) who had achieved a level of distinction in criminal prosecutions while serving in the Manhattan DA’s office.  This led the US Attorney’s outreach to see if I would come back to New Jersey, serve as an AUSA and litigate some of the office’s major cases, which I did.  I was subsequently appointed a Section Chief in the Criminal Division and a Senior Trial Attorney in the Frauds Division.  I was also awarded the Attorney General’s Special Achievement Award and asked to teach trial skills at the Department of Justice’s litigation training program in DC for AUSAs from across the country. 

Coming back to New Jersey was like coming home!  For my wife, however, having just given birth to Michelle, our move to New Jersey and living in Summit was the equivalent of purgatory!  Convincing her otherwise was simply not in the cards.  So after nearly four exhilarating years in the US Attorney’s Office, but still thinking on occasion of returning to NYC, I was offered the opportunity to move to the nation’s capital and work in the US Senate.  As luck would have it, this turned out to be an absolutely terrific experience that would lay the foundation for the balance of my career.

Washington DC (1979-Present)How did I end up in DC?  I came to Washington when a friend of mine who had gone to the US Attorney’s Office for Connecticut and was a former ADA in the Manhattan DA’s Office and Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office, suggested to US Senator Lowell Weicker, the Senior Senator from Connecticut, that he consider me for a Special Counsel position he wanted to fill on Committee on Small Business for the US Senate.  The Senator called, we met, he wanted me to join him, and I was then off to DC!  I was appointed Special Counsel to the Committee and subsequently assumed the Minority legislative responsibilities as well.   In 1980, while still on the Committee, I also served as Counsel to the White House Conference on Small Business.  In 1981, after Reagan was elected and the Republicans took over as the Majority party in the Senate for the first time in 40 years, Senator Weicker became Chairman of the Committee and I was appointed the Committee’s Chief Counsel.  After serving in this position for nearly six years and working with the Chairman and its members to develop programs and legislation important to the nation’s small business community, and conducting extremely extensive oversight over the Small Business Administration and it programs, it was time to move on.

In 1986, I left the Senate to become General Counsel of the National Association of Small Business Investment Companies (government assisted private equity firms) and represented the SBIC industry in policy, legislative and legal matters before the US Congress, the Executive Branch and Federal Agencies.

Four years later in 1990, having become a leading spokesperson for the SBIC industry, I decided it was time to actually practice law again and formed the Law Offices of R. Michael Haynes to represent SBICs in federal government licensures, fund formations and structuring, SBA operational and regulatory compliance, portfolio investment transactions, liquidation matters, and occasionally in litigation.  Its success was beyond what I had hoped for!  Eventually, in 2000, I merged my practice (new clients only) into a 125 year old regional law firm, Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, which had actively pursued my practice for merger discussions after losing the chair of its SBIC practice to an international law firm. Our merger resulted in my becoming a Principal and Shareholder of the firm; and for the next 18 years I first co-chaired then chaired the firm’s SBIC practice, elevating the firm’s practice to national prominence, which ended In January of this year when I decided to de-merge my practice from Semmes.

Activities Along the Way:  Served as Chairman, Small Business Committee, Financial Institutions and Economy Section of Federal Bar Association; Chairman, SBIC Subcommittee, Small Business Committee of the American Bar Association; Executive Committee Member of the Government Business Forum on Capital Formation of the US Securities and Exchange Commission; and member of the Small Business Council of the US Chamber of Commerce.

Other Recognitions:  Selected for inclusion in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, Who’s Who in the World, and chosen for inclusion in the Marquis Who’s Who Lifetime Achievers.  Have achieved an A/V Preeminent Rating from Martindale & Hubbell, the highest possible peer review rating for ethics and legal ability.

Peter E. Henry  

1968 - - An auspicious year - - Graduated from Rutgers Law;  Kathy graduated from Douglass College;  We got married August 10…I’m in the hospital August 12 having my appendix out;  Missed two weeks of Skills & Methods Course and had to make them up;  Sworn into the New Jersey Bar in November and started lawyering with Crummy, Gibbons & O’Neill in Newark (where I’d clerked in the summer of 1967 and through 3rd year)  I was the 11th lawyer at Crummy that November; there were 87 when I left 20 years later.

My first 9 years with Crummy I was a litigator.  Made partner in 1972, then was sent to manage the Bernardsville office in 1976 and explored - - and found I really liked  - - transactional work.  I even taught commercial law classes for the American Bankers Association.  Nevertheless, I was called back into Newark in 1979 because the firm needed me back into the expanding team prosecuting Curtis Wright’s claims against General Electric for fraudulent inducement and contract breaches in the Navy Nuclear Program.  I had prepared the Complaint in 1976 before going out to Bernardsville.  Although I was not anxious to get back into litigation, this was the kind of case which had so much at stake that it justified doing all the things you always wanted to do in litigation, but which most often did not warrant the time or expense.  We even went to the U.S. Supreme Court on a successful writ of certiorari after a reversal by the 3rd Circuit of a favorable District Court holding - - the question being whether GE had to pay a partial summary judgment (certified by the District Court as “final” on the issues and claims involved in that part of the case) prior to the entire case being concluded.  Best part - - we were also successful on the merits and made some law.

The Curtis Wright case continued on for several more years, becoming an essentially full-time job for me and for half-a-dozen others at the firm.  As we approached a trial, which was anticipated to take between 6 months and a year, the case was settled…Then, in the face of totally inconsistent competing proposed Settlement Agreements and Consent Orders, we litigated the terms of the “agreed” settlement for the better part of another year.

With that behind me, I leaped out of litigation and back into a transactional practice - - principally real estate, which led to land use work becoming the largest part of my practice going forward.  I did work for developers of residential and commercial tracts, for commercial users the likes of McDonald’s, petroleum companies, banks, and others who needed variances and/or site plan or subdivision approvals for their facilities.  On the other side of the table, I have counseled - - and still counsel - -  a number of municipal Planning Boards and Boards of Adjustment.  Along the way, there have been forays into Open Space acquisition and the Affordable Housing morass.

I left Crummy at the end of 1988, had my own small firm for several years, but merged it into Dillon, Bitar & Luther in 1993.  I remained there for 20+ years until most of my partners wanted to retire.  As that firm wound up, I was fortunate to find a home at McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter.  This resulted in no small amount of culture shock as I went from a firm which had 8 lawyers left [had never been larger than about 25] to the 150+/- lawyer home office of a nearly 300 lawyer firm.  To this day, the bulk of my practice involves land use and planning and zoning work.

Over the years, I’ve also had the privilege of what I like to think have been worthwhile pro bono and service activities - - Mendham Are Senior Housing Corp., several churches, the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and service on or chairing various local boards, committees and commissions.

MASH - - a subsidized apartment development for seniors - - goes way back.  Following a committee study of local needs for extremely affordable senior housing, I formed the entity 40 odd years ago which proceeded to obtain grants and below-market financing, secure a tract of land, and successfully complete two cycles of construction of facilities. I continue to be counsel to the operation.

Although to a limited extent throughout my practice, but particularly since Kathy went into the ministry, I’ve counseled a number of churches, especially guiding them through real estate, land use, and personnel matters.  This led to counseling the New Brunswick Theological Seminary and working out a suite of agreements with Rutgers University and the New Brunswick Development Corp.  A master plan of sales and swaps of excess lands was implemented to result in a state-of-the-art new Seminary facility and about $20 million in new funds for the Seminary’s endowments in exchange for the land on which Rutgers could then build its new Honors College complex.  It was one of those rare situations where all of the parties actually did come out ahead.  And that seemed to lead to my serving on the Seminary’s Board of Trustees.

And then there’s life…and it has been good.  Kathy is the love of my life and, together, we have been blessed with two terrific children - - first a girl and then a boy.  They have both grown into marvelous adults and parents and people, and we’ve been further blessed with 5 wonderful grandchildren (Beth’s 3 and Tim’s 2, with Tim and his wife expecting their 3rd at the end of June).  Beth and Tim both live in southeastern Pennsylvania…easy trips.  It doesn’t get much better than this.

Retirement is visibly on the horizon for both of us, but that will be another chapter…

Marjorie Gelb Jones

It was never my intention to practice law & I never have. When I graduated from college in 1962, classified ads in the NYTimes were posted separately as Jobs for Men/Jobs for Women & since I always wanted the men’s jobs, after three years - albeit exciting ones as secretary to the Chair of the Women’s Division of the NY Democratic State Committee (salary $55 per week) - especially at Rutgers, where tuition was only $500 per year, law school seemed a practical avenue of escape from behind a typewriter. Which proved to be the case, since my first job after law school in the trust department at Chase Manhattan Bank, paid $8000 per year, in those days a hefty salary, although of course I was paid significantly less than my male counterparts.

During the tumultuous ‘60s, as I shuffled papers at CMB, followed by several years writing opinions for the legal staff of the NYS Comptroller, my love of history was always lurking at the back of my mind; and so, after twenty years in banking & executive recruitment, while raising a daughter, I returned to school at the Graduate Faculty of The New School, where at age 55, I earned an MA in interdisciplinary Historical Studies. Since women’s spiritual journeys, including my own, interest me especially, my thesis regarding unpublished writings of renowned British historian Frances Yates led to the publication of my first biography, Frances Yates & the Hermetic Tradition (Ibis Press, 2008), followed several years later by another of the Audubon of Botany, Philadelphia Quaker Mary Vaux Walcott (Schiffer Press, 2016). In the fall my first mystery, In the Cards, is scheduled for publication.

At long last I discovered my true métier & to my surprise also found that my teaching of history was profoundly influenced by my three years at Rutgers Law. In our very first days of classes, I believe it was Professor Knowlton, who asked, “What’s the answer to every question?” The answer is, “It depends.” Of course this lesson applies to the telling of history as well.

Ironically the highlight of two decades of teaching at Mercy College, the New School & Villanova has been my experience teaching history & government in degree programs at two maximum security prisons (for men), where students excel. When teaching American government, I recall Professor Kinoy’s riveting lectures regarding the Constitution & always am reminded of another of Professor Knowlton’s more cynical observations: “Remember, as they strap your client into the electric chair, the only thing he may have done wrong is choose you for a lawyer!”

Finally there is paradigm Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who continues to inspire me, as she does so many other women of our generation – certainly an underrepresented caucus in law schools in the ‘50s & ‘60s. While we shared some laughs (remember Ray Arenofsky’s “forum shopping”?), sorry to say - especially amidst the terrible political violence of 1968 – for me law school wasn’t always a whole lot of fun: With a shove one classmate angrily accused me of taking the place of “someone being killed in Viet Nam” and once after he called on me to present a rape case, being mocked by Professor Brooks was a searing experience. Yet our three years together in Newark toughened me up & more importantly, taught me to think critically.

Lost in admiration for the true lawyers from the Class of ‘68, your many accomplishments & all the contributions you have made over the past half-century, I am grateful to Rutgers Law.

Marc Kadish

I left New Jersey soon after the bar exam.  My life has provided me with opportunities and experiences I never imagined.  My wife Suzin has been a public defender for 30 years.  We have two daughters.  I have a son from my first marriage.

I was a Legal VISTA in Detroit.  I received a Reginald Heber Smith Poverty Law Fellowship in 1969 and moved to Chicago.

After my “Reggie” I became a criminal defense lawyer.  I started my educational career teaching criminal law to inmates at two of Illinois’ maximum security prisons.

In 1979 I joined the clinical faculty at Chicago Kent College of Law.  I worked with students in an experimental fee-generating criminal defense clinic.  I taught evidence for 18 years.  I served as a Professor Reporter for the Illinois courts for judicial skills training and law and literature conferences.

In 1999 I became the Director of Pro Bono Activities and Litigation Training for Mayer Brown LLP.  Through Mayer Brown I participated in rule of law work.  I taught trial advocacy for five years in Cambodia, taught a two week course on International Human Rights to judges and bar leaders in Thailand and spent two weeks in Vietnam with the ABA.  I also co-taught a course for 15 years at Northwestern Law School entitled “Large Firms and Pro Bono.”

At the end of 2015 I stepped down from my position at the firm.  I remain at the firm as “Pro Bono Advisor.”  I continue to work on criminal, political asylum and inmate civil rights cases.  All in all, I have been a failure at retirement!

Ezra C. Levine

After graduation in 1968 I moved to Washington, DC to work for the Commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission drafting opinions for contested proceedings. Thereafter, in 1970 I became an associate at the DC office of the LA based firm of Wyman, Bautzer, Rothman and Kuchel engaged primarily in litigation relating to Indian tribes.  When that law firm's DC office closed at the end of 1973, I joined the Executive Office of the President in a newly created Federal Energy Office to deal with the shortfall of crude oil and refined petroleum products resulting from the Arab oil embargo. My responsibilities included all aspects of the Mandatory Price and Allocation regulations.  By the end of 1974, Congress created a new agency, the Federal Energy Administration which succeeded to the duties and responsibilities of the FEO and I became an Assistant General Counsel for Interpretations and Rulings. By 1978, the FEA had become an element of the new Department of Energy.

At the end of 1978, I left government service to join the DC based firm of Howrey and Simon, which was principally known for its antitrust and litigation expertise, but which represented many oil refiners who were the focus of continuing DOE enforcement efforts relating to the price control period. I became a partner at Howrey in 1980 and for some years litigated price control cases. After petroleum price decontrol in 1981, I turned to the firm's specialty, antitrust and engaged in antitrust litigation and counseling.

In the context of an antitrust case in 1987, I became aware of state safety and soundness laws regulating non-bank money transmitters. Since I had a client with an interest in that area, I soon realized that there was no organized group  of transmitter licensees and that the state licensing laws were a hodge lodge of differing regulatory schemes. After some effort, I assisted in the formation of the The Money Services Round Table composed of the leading national money transmitters. Over the years, the TMSRT, developed a Model Act for the licensing and regulation of such entities and was instrumental in enacting the Model Act, or the parallel NCCUSL version, in over 35 states.

During this period, and until my retirement in 2014, I also became expert in all aspects of the reporting and record keeping requirements of the US Bank Secrecy Act--the principal federal law designed to combat money laundering in diverse financial institutions by adding transparency to financial transactions. I was, from the date of its inception, a member of the US Treasury's Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group (until my retirement) and a non-bank delegate to the international Financial Action Task Force based in Paris.  

In my role as counsel to TMSRT and on behalf of individual non-bank financial entities such as money transmitters, internet funds transmitters, stored value card issuers, bitcoin exchanges, etc, I obtained transmitter licenses, defended companies in both licensing and money laundering compliance proceedings and testified many times in the Congress and in state legislatures throughout the US. Throughout this period I was a speaker on both non-bank regulation and money laundering compliance in both the US and Europe.

In 2011, with the demise of Howrey, I joined the DC office of the San Francisco firm  Morrison and Foerster where I continued my financial services practice and prepared younger lawyers to succeed me in expectation of my retirement at the end of 2014. After retirement, I became a director of privately held corporations.

I now split my time, with my wife Laura Stone, between our homes in DC and La Jolla, California. Since we have one grandchild in NYC and one in DC, we will always spend time in the east. While neither of our children are lawyers, our son in law is an antitrust litigator at Dechert in DC.

Howard McGinn

After graduation and the bar exam I began a judicial clerkship for the Honorable Charles F. Paulis, a County Court Judge in Warren County NJ sitting in Belvidere. Taking that position introduced me to Warren County where I spent the rest of my legal career.

Upon conclusion of the clerkship in September 1969 I became the sole associate of Arthur L. Alexander Esq. with an office in Washington Borough, Warren County NJ.

In July 1972 I opened my own office in Washington. I practiced in Washington until June 1999, as a sole practitioner until 1977 and then in partnership with Stuart C. Ours Esq.  We had a small town general practice and over the years I represented several zoning and planning boards in central Warren County municipalities.

In April 1981 I was appointed by Gov. Byrne and confirmed by the New Jersey Senate as the Warren County Prosecutor. I was the last part-time County Prosecutor in NJ. In June 1986, after the completion of my 5 year term and the election of Gov. Kean, realizing that as a Democrat I would not be reappointed, I resigned the Prosecutor's position to return full-time to my private practice.

During my career in private practice I was secretary of the District Ethics Committee from 1970 to 1973 and a member from1974 to 1976, and president of the Warren County Bar Association in 1991-92. A 1999 I received the Professional Lawyer of the Year Award for Warren County as issued by the New Jersey State Bar Association.

Non-legal outside activities have included the Washington Kiwanis Club where I was president in 1980-81, Rutgers Alumni Association where I was president of the Rutgers College Class of 1965 from 1990-1995, Warren County Human Relations Commission,  Cub Scout Pack Committee, and various other organizations and committees.

In 1999, growing weary of private practice, I returned to the Warren County Prosecutor's office as an Assistant Prosecutor. From June 2007 to January 2009 I served as Deputy First Assistant Prosecutor, and at the end of January 2009 I retired.

I lived in the Washington NJ area from 1968 until 1995 when I moved to Easton PA. Over the years, when time permitted, I had become interested in genealogy and I continued my hobby of photography which had begun in the 1950s. In retirement, based on my photography interest I joined the Arts Community of Easton and in 2010 became treasurer of that organization. Not long thereafter I volunteered as a genealogical researcher at the library of the Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society in Easton. Between both those commitments I have the usual retiree’s lament: “I am busier now than I was when I worked". While it's not really true, it seems that way and I seem to have little time to devote to my own photography and genealogy projects.  However I am heading to South Africa the week after our reunion for a one-week photographic safari. In the winter I also make time for an occasional ski trip, most recently to Mammoth Mountain CA.

On the family side, my wife Judy and I, who were married in 1967, divorced in the late 1980s. We have one son Daniel and one daughter, Patricia.  Dan is a Senior Editor at Harvard Business Review.  He and his wife Amy have three children: Abby, a freshman at University of Massachusetts, and Jack and Tom who are still in school in Westborough MA. Patty, who before kids worked in Human Resources for Goldman Sachs, and her husband Rob Humes live in Shrewsbury NJ with their three school age daughters Heather, Audrey, and Claire.

Daniel O'Connell

After graduating in 1968 I served as law clerk for the Honorable’s Samual Convery and DuBois Thompson in the Superior Court NJ Middlesex County . I left the clerkship in late 1968 to go on active duty with United States Army. On return I did a short clerkship with the Assignment Judge in Middlesex County Joseph Halpern who introduced me to William Lanigan the former associate General Counsel for John’s Manville Corp. who was setting up his practice in Basking a Ridge NJ and NYC.

I joined William Lanigan in late 1969 and became partner in 1970. Over the next 17 years we established a National practice in labor law representing John’s Manville Corp, The American Institute of Structural Steel, the Iron league of N.Y. (Bethlehem, US, Harris and Koch Steel) numerous Construction Industry Trade Associations, Colleges , Universities, and Healthcare organizations. In addition we added land use, public sector work, tax, and entertainment law. I also served as Labor Counsel to Lafayette College . In addition I served as primary outside counsel to the United States Golf Association.

In 1985 I merged my practice with Shanley and Fisher in  Morristown NJ and NYC. At Shanley I headed the firms Healthcare Practice and labor group. In 1989 I became a Managing Partner and served in that role until 1999 when I was instrumental in merging Shanley with Drinker Biddle and Reath in Philadelphia.

I became a Managing Partner  of the merged firm and assistant to the Chairman. Over the next 10 years I worked to grow the firm to 600 plus Attorney’s in 13 offices in 9 States.

At the same time I served as chairman of the Healthcare practice groups with lawyers in our NJ, NY, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Washington DC, and Chicago offices.

In addition to my legal work I was named as Chairman of The New Jersey BioEthics Commission in 1986 by Governor Thomas Kean and led that organization for 4 years drafting legislation on Living Will’s,  end of life decision making, Surrogacy laws. I also served as a consultant to President Reagan’s BioEthics Studies. I later worked with Governor Whitman on healthcare issues. I was also a member of  The International BioEthics Commission in Amsterdam.

I retired as Managing Partner of Drinker Biddle and Reath in 2012. I served 2 years as Of Counsel to the firm and fully retired from the practice of Law in 2015.

Len Olsen

Dear Classmates: At first glance, summing up the last 50 years in a few words seemed an impossible task. But after eliminating all of those things that seemed so important at the time but which now, in retrospect, seem hardly worth mentioning, it’s not so hard. Here goes:

After graduation, I clerked for a year in the Appellate Division of the NJ Superior Court, and then, for the next 23 years or so, I worked at large law firms in New York and Philadelphia, specializing in tax-advantaged investments (remember “tax shelters”?), corporate transactions, and in-bound foreign investment planning (remember the “Dutch Sandwich”?).

In 1992, I took a job with a client that was based in semi-rural Chester County, PA, where my wife, Diane, and I then lived for the next 25 years and raised our two children, Leonard (age 26) and Deanna (age 24). My employer was a privately-held environmental insurance underwriter and my tenure there turned out to be the most interesting segment of my career. I had a dual role as General Counsel and Manager of the firm’s European operations. The latter position was an enjoyable role-reversal. I was the client, for a change, and got to hire and fire the lawyers. What fun!

The job became less fun when the firm was sold to a large, publicly-held insurance conglomerate. After 8 years of corporate nonsense, and inasmuch as I was approaching age 65, I decided to semi-retire. Since then, I have been practicing on my own as a part-time T&E lawyer. In October of last year, Diane and I returned to Center City Philadelphia and began the next chapter of the story.

Along this 50 year path I was very fortunate to be able to do many personal things that seemed far out of reach when I dreamed of them growing up in small-town South Jersey: travel extensively, live in Spain, do Outward Bound, run a marathon, mountaineer in faraway places, etc. So, looking back, I’m happy to be able to say: “It wasn’t all billable hours!” I also think that a lot of whatever success I enjoyed, professionally and otherwise, was much the result of the sheer blind good luck of being born in white America in the middle of the 20th century. I hope my children will have the same wealth of opportunities.

Best wishes to all of you as the rest of our stories unfold!

Donald S. Ryan

MARITAL STATUS:

  • Married to Lynne Ryan
  • Two children, 6 grandchildren

EDUCATION:

  • High School: Haddonfield High School - 1961
  • College: Colgate University, Hamilton, NY - 1965
  • Law School: Rutgers University, Newark, NJ –1968

ADMITTED TO THE BAR:

  • State of New Jersey - 1968
  • Federal District Court of NJ, 1970
  • U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, 1975
  • United States Supreme Court, 1978

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY:

  • 1968-1969 Law Secretary to Hon. John B. Wick, Superior Court of NJ, Chancery Division, Camden, Gloucester & Burlington Counties
  • 1969-1972 Associate in law firm of Schantz and Tropp, Haddonfield, NJ
  • 1972-1977 Partner in law firm of Schantz, Tropp, Sherman & Ryan, Haddonfield, NJ
  • 1977-1979 Sole practioner, Haddonfield, NJ
  • 1979-Present - Partner in law firm of Ryan and Thorndike (two person law firm)

AREAS OF LAW PRACTICE:

  • Residential and commercial real estate, contracts, contract disputes, estate planning, estate administration, municipal court, litigation and land use development representing municipal agencies and developers.

SOLICITORSHIPS:

  • Haddonfield Municipal Prosecutor from 1985-2010
  • Solicitor for Haddonfield Planning Board from 1972-1977, 1982-1985, 2012-2018
  • Solicitor for Haddon Heights Zoning Board and Joint Land Use Board from 1974-2018
  • Solicitor for Gibbsboro Zoning Board and Joint Land Use Board from 1985-2018

MEMBERSHIPS:

  • Member of the Camden County Bar
  • Association and NJ State Bar Association
  • Probate and Trust Committee

After graduating from Colgate in 1965, I enrolled in law school at Rutgers University in Newark. I spent three years there and got my JD degree, which included a non-credit course called the “Newark Riots.”

For extra money, I tried substitute teaching in the Newark school system and immediately gained a deep appreciation for the challenges of teaching in an urban school.

Shortly after graduation and passing the NJ Bar exam, I made the biggest and best decision of my life, I married my wife of 50 years, Lynne.

I then began a one-year clerkship (1968-1969) with a New Jersey Superior Court Judge and found the experience a great transition from the academic to the real world of practicing law. I have been practicing for 50 years and still learning.

In September 1969, my wife and I came home from the longest (4 week) vacation of our lives, and I began working at a five-person law firm in my hometown of Haddonfield, New Jersey. In 1978, I teamed up with Peter Thorndike in a law partnership, which continues 40 years later.

In 1970 and 1972 respectively, our two children Chris and Leigh were born. As those were “unsettled and changing times,” we are proud to say that we have two successful, healthy adult children who have married and produced six grandchildren who are the joys of the latest chapter of our lives.

David J. Sheehan

  1. Clerk for Honorable Theodore J. Labrecques, New Jersey Supreme Court, Appellate Division
  2. Lieutenant, U.S. Navy, Judge Advocate General Corps. 1969 – 1973 a. Military Judge for all Special Courts Martial in Third Naval District, 1972 – 1973
  3. Partner, Gibbons P.C. (formerly known as Crummy, Gibbons & O’Neill) 1973 – 2006, Managing Partner 1987 -2004
  4. Partner, Troutman Sanders, New York Office, 2006 – 2008
  5. Partner, BakerHostetler LLP, New York Office, 2008 – Present
  6. Chief Counsel to Trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, 2008 – Present
    1. Legal actions brought in behalf of Trustee have recovered 13 billion dollars to date, all of which has been or will be distributed to victims of Mr. Madoff.
  7. Fellow, American College of Trial Lawyers, 2003 – Present
  8. Life Fellow, American Bar Foundation, 2000 – Present
  9. The Best Lawyers in America©, 2003 – 2018
    1. New York: Litigation – Bankruptcy
    2. New York: Litigation – Intellectual Property
  10. New York Metro "Super Lawyers", 2007 – 2017
    1. "Top 100 Lawyers" in New York Metro area, 2007, 2011 – 2014, 2016
  11. Above the Law: One of 23 "Top Partners to Work For" in New York, 2011
  12. Chambers USA: Litigation: General Commercial in New York, 2014 – 2016 
  13. Benchmark Litigation "Litigation Star", 2014
  14. Law360 MVP in Bankruptcy, 2015
  15. Thurgood Marshall Award, Association of the Bar of the City of New York for service as pro bono counsel to an individual under sentence of death.

Richard Silverman

Following graduation in 1968, and shortly after taking the NJ Bar Examination, I was called to active duty as a First Lieutenant in the Adjutant Generals Corps of the US Army. While at Officers Basic Training at FT. Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, Indiana. Several weeks into the training I was notified that I passed the bar exam and was granted leave to attend the swearing in ceremony. While there I noted the number of fellow attendees with recent orthodontic appliances gleaming as they smiled…a basis for a draft exemption!

Following graduation, I was assigned as the Assistant Adjutant General at Continental Command HQ in Hampton, VA. Approximately a year later I received orders to deploy to Korea where I spent the next 14 months in Seoul and Taegu. While there, I was promoted to the rank of Captain and had fabulously interesting assignments including being in charge of the Personnel Reliability Program overseeing the personnel issues of our troops that had access to nuclear weapons stored in country.I finished my tour of duty as Aide-de Camp to the Commanding General of the Korea Support Command.

Upon release from active duty at the end of 1970 I decided to seek a position with the US government in Washington, DC. I received offers from the DOJ, FTC, DOL and HEW and accepted a position in the Honors Program at FDA (a part of the then HEW). I began my career there as a Trial Attorney litigating cases arising under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Professor Cohen’s “Legisputation “ course used this statute as the basis for his teaching and gave me a huge “ leg up” in getting assigned the more difficult cases our office tried along with various US Attorney offices throughout the country. Because I was a member of the NJ Bar I, early on in my career, was assigned to try the largest seizure case in US history, the  famous/infamousUS v. Bon Vivant Soup. It encompassed over 4,000 separate seizure actions which were consolidated for trial in Newark, the home of the manufacturer of the under processed vichyssoise soup that contained botulinum toxin and killed at least one person and threatened millions more. The litigation was hotly contested, lasted over four years before it was settled and received both national and international news coverage. 

As a result of the high visibility role I had in representing the FDA, I was approached by the foods subsidiary of the then R.J. Reynolds Industries , Inc, whose products included Hawaiian Punch, Vermont-Maid syrup, Chun King chinese-style foods and Patio Mexican- style foods, among many other well known brands. From 1975-79 I served as VP, Secretary and General Counsel of RJR Foods, Inc and also as Associate General Counsel of its parent company. My last assignment while there was to obtain FTC clearance of our acquisition of the Del Monte Corporation, the nations largest canner of fruits and vegetables. For interesting insights on what my life was like while at RJR, you must read “Barbarian’s At The Gate”.

While this acquisition was playing out, I was approached by a DC boutique that represented several food industry trade associations and was looking for someone to start a food and agriculture practice. Not wanting to leave family and friends on the East Coast as the food company consolidated in San Francisco, the home of Del Monte, I joined Collier, Shannon, Rill and Scott as a lateral partner in 1979. Ten years later, after Jim Rill left the firm to become the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust ,I moved my Food and Agriculture practice ( by then the largest in the US) to DC’s oldest and largest firm, Hogan and Hartson where I remained for 25+ years. While there, I was elected to the firm’s five person Executive Committee and served as Practice Group Director of the firm’s varied regulatory   practices. 

Subsequently Hogan & Hartson combined with the London based Lovell’s to form what is known as HoganLovells LLP. The firm now has over 47 offices in over 24 countries with 2,800 lawyers that speak over 70 languages and with over a century of history. I served on the Integration Committee that worked for years to bring the two firms together as one. At present, I have retired as a partner and serve as Senior Counsel where it is my pleasure to work with the young associates and junior partners in helping them develop their practices and grow as attorneys.

It has been a great ride. Rutgers Law prepared me well. I have been blessed to have a wife of 50 years by my side. Together we have two children and two grandsons of whom we could not be more proud.

Lee M. Smith

After graduation, I clerked for the New Jersey Superior Court Assignment Judge for Passaic County and then served on active duty for three years with fellow classmate David Sheehan in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps (in “exotic” duty stations located in Scotia, NY and Brooklyn NY).

Upon release from active duty in the Navy in 1972, I spent one inglorious year as Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at our alma mater law school in Newark. Thereupon, I served in various legal positions in New York State government, including as Counsel to the New York State Public Retirement Systems for Comptroller Arthur Levitt and as an Assistant Counsel to Governor Hugh L. Carey.

For the remainder of my full time legal career I was employed by The Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York (MONY) in various capacities, retiring in 2004 as Vice President for Government Relations and Corporate Secretary. Upon retirement from MONY, I worked on a part-time basis for the New York State Legislative Bill Drafting Commission in Albany, New York.

My wife, Kristine Herrick, and I reside in The Pinehills in Plymouth, Massachusetts, just off Cape Cod (alas, a lifelong Yankee fan surrounded by “Red Sox”!). My daughter, Suzannah Evans, and her two children live in Boulder, Colorado, and my step-daughter, Katie Bugbee, and her three children live in Newton, Massachusetts, just outside Boston.

Myroslaw Smorodsky

In looking back at the 50 years of my professional life, I am reminded that, to paraphrase John Lennon, “Life is what happens when planning other things”. As fate would have it, my legal career was quite an unexpected roller coaster ride encompassing many areas of the law ranging from criminal defense, to transactional and litigation matters, to class actions involving Nazi Era slave/forced labors claims. A staccato summary of my professional odysseys follows:

Stryker, Tams & Dill, Newark, NJ, 1968-1970, Associate engaged in general commercial and business litigation. Public Defender’s Office, Newark, NJ, 1970-74, Senior Trial Attorney; litigated many homicide and other felony cases. Smith Ely, Rutherford, NJ, 1974 - 1984, Partner, Smorodsky & Stawnychy P.A., Rutherford, NJ, 1985-2001, Senior Partner; General Practice; Consulted clients on post-Soviet Ukrainian international business transactions and disputes; Counseled various international trading companies engaged in the manufacture, importation and sale of products from Europe and the Pacific Rim; Advised the Consulate General of Ukraine (NY), the Ukrainian Mission to the UN, and the Ukrainian Embassy to the United States.

Myroslaw Smorodsky P.A., Rutherford, Ho-Ho-Kus, and Lakewood, NJ, 2001 – to Present, but recently semi-retired. Engaged in the general practice of law with a concentration in the representation of Ukrainian nationals on matters in the United States; Of Counsel to Ukriniurkoleguia, the Ukrainian Bar for Foreign Affairs, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Represented the Ukrainian class of survivors of the forcible Nazi deportation of millions of Ukrainians during World War II to Germany and Austria to work as forced/slave laborers. Participated in the negotiations and was signatory to the German and Austrian Settlements. Served as a member of the official Ukrainian Government Delegation in the negotiations.

Managed the defense of a major Ukrainian gas utility, NAK Naftogaz, averting the enforcement in the United States of an $88 million arbitration award obtained by the insurer of a Russian gas producer, Gazprom, in a Moscow court.

Lead counsel in a successful 10-year litigation defending a local parish’s property rights against the claims of the US archdiocese and the parish’s prerogative to remain spiritually faithful to its Autocephalous Mother Church in Ukraine. International Organization for Migration (IOM), Geneva, Switzerland, 2001 – 2006; appointed by the IOM to the Steering Committee on implementation of financial compensation to former forced/slave laborers of the Nazi regime. Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), Madrid, Spain, 1980; appointed as a Public Member by President Jimmy Carter to the Second Triennial Meeting of the signatory countries to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and advised the U.S. delegation on policy relating to military parity, trade between East and West, and Soviet human rights issues.

Expert Witness, Joint Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Washington, D.C., 1981 and 1986; testified on Soviet violations of the 1975 Helsinki Accords and the implications for United States foreign policy. Presenter and Panelist, International Conference on Territorial Integrity and World Peace, Sapporo, Japan, 1981; the conference centered on the territorial dispute between Japan and the USSR over the Kurile Islands.

Organizational Activities, World Congress of Ukrainian Jurists, Kyiv, Ukraine, Founding Member, Vice President, 1992-94, Governing Committee, 2003–07; Ukrainian American Bar Association, Founding Member, 1977; Board of Governors, 1993-2013; President, 1978-79, 1990-92; Communications Director, 2013 to present; organized the first conference between American and Ukrainian lawyers in Ukraine’s history in Kyiv and Lviv, Ukraine, in 1991. Human Rights Activities; from 1972 through the late 1980s participated in the defense of Soviet political prisoners at various forums; at the American Bar Association 1980 meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii implementing the ABA Rule of Law Resolution on behalf of a dissident Ukrainian lawyer; prepared presentations in defense of Soviet dissidents at the Third Session of the International Sakharov Hearings, Washington, D.C., 1979; Legal Advisor and Trustee, Ad Hoc International Helsinki Legal Defense Committee, 1978; legal advisor to the Committee for the Defense of Soviet Political Prisoners, Inc., 1974-1981.

However, the most important achievement [despite the extremely challenging personal hurdles life has thrown our way] is that my wife, Zoriana, and I have been blessed with two wonderful daughters with great husbands and five grandchildren - now ages 9 to 16 - whom we love dearly and are quite unabashedly and extraordinarily proud of.

Timothy T. West

After graduation from the University of Virginia (B.A., 1965) and Rutgers Law School (J.D., 1968), Tim served as Captain, J.A.G.C., U.S. Marine Corps (1969-1972). He held various positions in the Staff Judge Advocate Office at Camp Pendleton, California, including, Defense Counsel, Chief Prosecutor and Military Judge.

Tim received his M.B.A. degree from Columbia University (1973) and worked part-time at the Office of Public Defender, State of New Jersey, Appellate (Criminal).

With more than 35 years of executive and inside counsel experience with multinational energy companies, he is well-versed in oil and gas exploration and production and transactional matters. Tim served as Chief Counsel for Upstream Petroleum Operations for a major oil and gas company, including its business in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.

He has worked on energy transactions in more than 40 countries and supervised several overseas legal offices. Tim held executive positions as President and General Manager in Quito, Ecuador and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and served as Vice President of International Negotiations for a large independent oil and gas company.

He was Counsel with the Energy Transactions Section of Vinson & Elkins. Tim was part-time lecturer in energy law at Rutgers Law School – Camden (2013 – 2015). He was voted by students as Best New Adjunct Law Professor in 2014. Tim will co-teach this fall as adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School a course in energy, economics and the environment in the holodeck (Camden/New Brunswick). He serves on Educational Advisory Boards for the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN) and Institute for Energy Law of the Center for American and International Law (CAIL).

Tim served as President, AIPN (2007 - 2008); Chair, Executive Committee and Trustee, Institute for Energy Law, CAIL (2008-2010); Trustee-At-Large, Rocky Mountain Minerals law Foundation (2008 - 2011) and Director, World Affairs Council of Houston (2004 - 2008). He received AIPN’s Legacy Award in 2016.

He was admitted to practice in New Jersey (1968), California (1972), and Texas (1992).

Tim and Elene West reside in Houston, Texas and spend summer- fall in Titusville, New Jersey. They have 5 children and 9 grandchildren who live in Denver, Houston, Cleveland, Baltimore and Radford, Virginia. He served on the Board of Directors of the BEACON which provides services, including, legal, to Houston’s homeless (2012-2017).

Tim volunteers as tour guide at the Washington Crossing Historic Museum (Pennsylvania) and oarsman in the annual reenactment of Washington Crossing the Delaware on December 25th (2016 - 2017). He will serve on the Board of Trustees of the Washington Crossing Park Association of New Jersey (2018 - )

Carl R. Woodward, III

After law school, I was associated with a small firm in New Brunswick, NJ, where I had my first opportunity to try cases, including a few jury trials. In March 1969, I entered active duty in the U.S. Army, where I served as a contracting officer, first in the U.S. Army Electronics Command, Philadelphia, and then as a Captain with the U.S. Army Procurement Agency Vietnam in Saigon.

Upon return stateside, I clerked for the Hon. Baruch S. Seidman, Chancery Division, Superior Court, Trenton, NJ. In September 1971, I was sworn in as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and ultimately became Chief of the Environmental Protection Division. In 1978, four of us left the U.S. Attorney’s office to found the firm of Sweeney, Bozonelis, Staehle and Woodward in Chatham. In 1990, Ted Bozonelis and I merged into Carella, Byrne, where I still practice.

I have engaged in a broad general practice, with special emphasis on environmental and governmental and municipal law as well as litigation both civil and criminal in State and federal courts. I served as the Chatham Township Attorney for 22 years, the New Providence Borough Attorney for 19 years, and Cranford Township Attorney for 4 years, as well as Board of Adjustment Attorney for Chatham Township and Planning Board Attorney for New Providence. I taught zoning and planning at Seton Hall Law School as an adjunct professor in 1985. Over the years, I have also lectured on topics in environmental law and municipal law, particularly in the area of public records, public meetings, and government ethics.

Other activities include President of the Rutgers Alumni Association, Alumni Trustee of Rutgers, President Rutgers Class of 1965, Member of the New Jersey District V-C Ethics Committee, Trustee of the New Jersey Institute of Local Government Attorneys, League Associate Counsel of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, Barrister in the C. Willard Heckel Inn of Court at Rutgers, President of the Board of Lyrica Chamber Music, Board Member of Friends of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (Burns, OR), Board Member of Greenwood Gardens (Short Hills, NJ), and Board Member of The Trumpeter Swan Society. I serve as an Elder in the Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township and, continuing in the tradition of the Evidence Glee Club (see our yearbook), sing in the choir.

I have been married to Kathy (Rutgers MSW, 1970) for 45 years. We have two children and three granddaughters. We love traveling to wild places, birding, photography, golf and music.