Michael R. Cole

Michael R. Cole grew up the second of seven siblings and the oldest of five boys in the small Union County town of Roselle Park. He attended parochial primary schools, then Marist High School and St. Peter’s University (1966). He graduated from Rutgers Newark Law School in 1970 while working a full-time job in human resources before securing a clerkship with Justice C. Thomas Schettino of the New Jersey Supreme Court.

“At the time, Justice Schettino was housed in Newark with a number of other justices, including Chief Justice Weintraub,” says Cole’s widow and former New Jersey State Supreme Court Justice Jaynee LaVecchia. “So Michael would often recount quite fondly how much he appreciated the opportunity to learn not just from his own justice, but also from the Chief Justice, Justice [John J.] Francis, and some of the other justices that were all in the same shared chambers.”

Cole joined Newark firm Clapp & Eisenberg and became a partner for a short time before accepting a position with the New Jersey Division of Law, then working his way up to first assistant attorney general under then-governor Brendan Byrne. Ross Lewin, Esq., of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, met Cole when he joined the division as a deputy attorney general. Says Ross, who was supervised by Cole in this position, then later recruited by him to serve on the board of Legal Services of New Jersey (LSNJ), “He was really a mentor to me and a hero in a lot of ways. He was a unique combination of principle and pragmatism. He had a deep sense of values in pursuing what was right and just.”

When Governor Thomas H. Kean was elected to his second term in 1986, he invited Cole to leave the attorney general’s office and join his staff as chief counsel.

Kean first learned of Cole when the latter was appointed to oversee a 1981 gubernatorial recount between Kean and James J. Florio. “It didn’t matter who you talked to,” says Kean. “Republicans, Democrats, old, young—whatever. Everybody said, you can’t have a finer human being than Mike Cole.” Later, when Kean needed a new chief counsel for his second term, there was no question in his mind. “Mike Cole was, by far, the ablest person, ablest attorney in the entire state government.”

Cole advocated for state support of Legal Services throughout his time in the Kean administration, convincing the governor that Legal Services was absolutely essential. “He had that kind of integrity, that kind of persuasive ability. You [Legal Services] couldn’t have had a better advocate.”

When Cole left government in 1989 to join Riker Danzig, LaVecchia recalls that he was disinterested in doing any lobbying work, uncomfortable with the idea of lobbying his former colleagues—with one exception. In his words, given at a Legal Services event in his honor in 2005, “I became involved in a cause that captured my mind and my heart, and that was Legal Services of New Jersey. Legal Services became the one cause for which I was proud to advocate and lobby. Becoming its advocate was easy. Talking to legislators and public officials about the necessity of Legal Services was like giving a civics lesson.”

Cole was a member of the Legal Services of New Jersey board of trustees from 1990 – 1993 and 1996 – 2008, with nine of those years (1996 – 2005) as board president. In 1997, when he left Riker Danzig to join DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick & Cole in Teaneck, he urged colleague Michael Furey, Esq., to join as well. “Mike and I had been partners at the Riker Danzig firm, and he was leaving to join the DeCotiis firm, and he thought it was important that Riker continue to have a member of the board. Doug Eakeley had served previously as a member of the Legal Services board. Then Mike had followed him, and I was the third in the line,” says Furey. “He was very unassuming and self-effacing, but he was a very, very talented lawyer. He was as bright a lawyer as I have met in New Jersey. … He was also, I found, to be very tolerant and respectful of people who had different views. Especially in today’s time period, where so few people respect others who have different views, Mike was a stark contrast to that.”

While on the board, Cole recruited other extraordinary people to join, including retired Supreme Court justices and leaders of the Bar Association. But perhaps his greatest contribution to Legal Services was ushering through the passage of the filing fee bill to support Legal Services in New Jersey.

In response to attacks and lost funding at the federal level in 1995, Cole devised a plan to put a bill in the legislature to raise filing fees and to dedicate those filing fees to the restoration of funding for Legal Services. He secured the support of the State Bar Association. Then, in keeping with his bipartisan approach, he convinced the leadership of both parties in both houses to sponsor the bill, which passed easily and was signed in less than four months. The result was a funding increase of $8 million, largely replacing the lost federal revenue and breathing new life into the beleaguered program.

“He had such respect, he could pull those people in and make sure they were as committed to Legal Services as he was,” says Lewin.

Dawn K. Miller, Esq., current president of LSNJ, says, “Mike Cole was a true believer, staunch supporter, and champion for Legal Services in New Jersey. Through his leadership, LSNJ achieved greater bipartisan support in the legislature, and he was instrumental for the passing of key funding legislation. LSNJ, and therefore the low income community in New Jersey, was truly blessed to have Mike’s support.”

Recalling what would turn out to be his last speech about Legal Services, LaVecchia shares, “Michael said in the speech that serving with Legal Services staff, the board of trustees, and ultimately, for a while, as chair of the board, was one of the most important endeavors he had ever done in his life. And, considering a man who had held so many significant positions and done so much in his life, I think that sums up best how he felt about the importance of Legal Services. It truly was near and dear to him and his life.”