Colonel Stephen Patrick

(00:11.726)

Sounds good.

 

All right, 1965, 1965, so many important milestones in our country's history. Civil rights movement was at its peak. Martin Luther King marched in Selma, Alabama. President Lyndon B. Johnson sent the first combat troops to Vietnam and protests raged everywhere, including...

 

here in New Jersey. On a lighter note, the Beatles were at the height of their fame. The Supremes had four number one hits, but Woolly Bully was named Billboard's number one song of the year. Today's guests graduated from law school in 1965. Three years later,

 

After completing his full -time military service, he began practicing law here in South Jersey, and he has not stopped since.

 

I'd like to introduce our very special guest today. Colonel Steven Patrick. You know everything, don't you? Welcome. Thank you very much for joining us here today. No problem. So we had a few technical difficulties, but we were persistent and I'm really happy that we were because I have not interviewed anyone on New Jersey Criminal Podcast in quite some time and

 

  (01:53.582)

I had a number of people suggest that I invite you on to be a guest to talk about the practice of law and how it has changed in the last, what, 58 years since you've been practicing.

 

Yep. So let's let's jump right in. Where where were you born? I don't know where you were. I've known you for a really long time. Orange, New Jersey. OK, Orange, New Jersey and. And did you I know you went to Rutgers Law. Right, Rutgers undergraduate, New Brunswick, Rutgers Law in Newark. And I remember one day when I was a prosecutor down in Cape May County, you brought your law school yearbook in.

 

I actually did a year before. It was a 64 year book. Can't find my... bury somewhere. And you had a pretty special professor at the school at that time. Right? Miss Bader Ginsburg. She was young, she was very attractive by my dad. She just sort of... he just didn't treat her very kindly. Did you have her as a professor? No.

 

I didn't we had two women were professors and I had neither of them So out of all of the professors at Rutgers Law School when you attended there was only two professors Two females. Yeah that were that were females. Do you remember were there any females in your class any women in your class? I believe there were a couple That was one of the things that I did you talk about changes women in the law I mean me when I started out I

 

It was a rare woman. I start, first place I worked was Atlantic city. And I only knew of one woman, Greaves Skull, and she did, I believe mostly estate work. Never saw any women in the actual trial. And that's changed.

 

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What made you go to law school? I don't know. I wanted to be a lawyer. I know the thought was in my mind when I was in high school. In fact, I'm not a good speller sometimes. So we had to write down on our home room, we had to write down some sort of what we wanted to be when we grew up. So I raised my hand and said, how do you spell criminal?

 

I wanted to be a criminal lawyer, but it brought down the house. So you went to law school right after high school? No, I went to law school after college. I graduated from Columbia High School. You went straight through, though, right? Oh, yeah. Where did you go to undergrad? Rutgers, New Brunswick. And then you went to Rutgers for law school. OK. New York, yeah. We were living in East Orange at that time. We moved.

 

I moved a lot when I was young. Started out in Orange, my hospital. Lived in West Orange for about four years, a little less than four years. Then the war started and my father went into service and we moved to Handicat, Connecticut. The next thing I knew we were back in South Orange renting an apartment. I know we were there on DJ day because I still remember the bells ringing, my mother crying.

 

because my father at that time was in the Philippines waiting for the invasion of Japan. So obviously he was going to come home. So it was a good deal. And then we had transferred. No, we moved in with my grandmother, my father's mother, after my grandfather died. Lived there for a couple of years and then Prudential, where my father worked, transferred us to California. So I went to Bannerize, California. I was in two second grades.

 

And when I moved into seventh grade,

 

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They moved me from one junior high to another junior high. And California has a strange situation. They run semesters, they have an A and a B, seven A's, seven B. You can start either depending upon where you come into it. So you can effectively graduate in the dead of winter, such as it is in California. And then the crew moved us back to New Jersey and we lived in Maplewood. That's where I was when I went to college. And then when my brother went to college,

 

We moved to an apartment in Easton, so I've been in all the oranges. And, uh...

 

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So that's how I ended up wherever I was. And so when I went into the service, got a job in South Jersey, and I made up my mind that my kids weren't going to be shuffling around. I'd say two second grade and three seventh grades, which means a lot in terms of making friends and all that kind of stuff. When did you join the service?

 

September 19, 1965. In fact, it was interesting situation. I was at Fort Knox at the armor school when I should have been sworn in. So I was able to deal that I was personally sworn in in December when I came home on leave. But Chief Justice himself, he came out and swore me in.

 

December 22nd, 1965, according to NJ Courts. So you graduated from law school in 65, joined the service in September, and then were sworn in? I was commissioned in 1962.

 

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I had a three -year obligation, or two -year obligation in ROTC as a reserve officer. So I got a deferment for the law school and then I went and so I was technically, I've been in the military since 1962. And what would, did you join the army? I know you're in the national guard now. Rutgers had two ROTC programs, Air Force and Army. Because it was a land -grant college, they thought,

 

or all Engram colleges did, that they had to have two years mandatory ROTC. And then they later changed it so it's voluntary all the way through. There's no mandatory anything. And so at the end of those two years, I looked around the world and we still had the draft and I said, I'd rather be the guy who says, hey, you know, the guy who says, who me? So I got my commission.

 

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When you... Stationed in Fort Knox for however long it took me to get through that and in 66 I got to fly to Germany where I served for the balance of the three years. So you basically as soon as you were sworn in as an attorney you went to Germany and spent three years there. Were you married at that time? Yes indeed. And what year did you get married? 1965. I mean it was a good year.

 

It was a busy year for you. My wife and I had a little discussion about, I thought, well, I'll get my service out of the way. And she said, no chance, and that's going to happen. So we got married in 65. And it was a strange situation. The Army has what they call MOS, Military Occupation Specialty. When I went off to get my orders, they sent me to Fort Knox. It had a MOS of 2019. I don't know what it is now. They've changed the numbers around.

 

Nobody could tell me what 2019 was because all the armor officers were 1203 or 1204. 1203 was armor, 1204 was cavalry. So my duty station was supposed to be Garmisch -Partenkirchen. Now Garmisch -Partenkirchen, for those who don't know, is a ski resort where they held the 36 Winter Olympics. So I figured, well, I've never skied before. I'm willing to learn. And...

 

I could have my wife with me if I went for concurrent travel. So I applied for concurrent travel and extended to three years because my obligation was only two, but extended to three years. And they promptly denied my concurrent travel and reassigned me to Balmholt in Germany, which is a troop training area. That time I was there was the largest concentration of American soldiers anywhere in the world, I guess, than Fort Knox because we had...

 

We had the 2nd Brigade of the Eastern Division, which I was part of. We had the 3rd Cavalry, we had the Division of Artillery there, and a whole batch of other miscellaneous units. So it was a very busy place. But because I had, in order to get on our debt -concurrent travel and bring my wife over, I had to go to the 3rd year, and they stuck it to me. You can get, we've got you for three years, and oh, and by the way, you can't bring your wife.

 

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And or we're not going to pay to have your wife transported. And by the way, you're going to Baumholder. And when I told all the people what Baumholder was going to, they all laughed. They were envious of me for Garmisch, but not so happy for Baumholder. And by the way, 2019 is post commander. He read my mind. I was a post lieutenant at the time. And I'm thinking, well, Garmisch had a very small army school there. And I know.

 

One of the things people don't realize is the senior man on post is often, he's usually not the post commander. Where I was stationed in Baumholder, the post commander was a major. We had a brigadier general on post. So it is, I don't know how they decide who's going to be post commander, but it ended up not being me. It ended up being a tanker all the way. So what was your specialty throughout those three years? Armor, tanks. Okay. My grandfather was a, was a,

 

tank sergeant in World War II. Oh good. Yeah. That's a dicey business. Some people can't stand tanks. They get claustrophobic. Never bothered me. And tell you what, it's an interesting experience. What sold me on tanks was when I was in ROTC, they sent me down for at the end of my junior year to Fort Bragg for ROTC summer camp.

 

and they put on what they call a firepower demonstration. At that time, the 82nd Airborne was at Fort Bragg and they had a tank battalion assigned to them. It was an independent tank battalion, light tanks they were. Anyhow, with the firepower demonstration, they brought out, they're flying overhead and they drop a batch of artillery pieces parachuted and one of them streamered in so it didn't...

 

land successfully and then they jumped a stick of paratroopers and a couple of them their chutes didn't collapse and the guy said that's because they didn't they were injured they could get up and collapse their chutes so I said that's not much fun then they had a guy come out with a flamethrower there's a fairly windy day and he lit up his flamethrower and he shot straight up in the air and I said I don't think I want to be an infantryman either and then he brought out the tank platoon now

 

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Having nothing but infantry, it's all close quarters, relatively speaking. These tanks came out, they did what they call a neutral steer, which basically one track goes forward, one track goes backward. It can turn in its own space, doesn't have to do anything. So five tanks came out, neutral steer, we'll fire five cannons, and they had targets, which they put 55 -gallon drums of gasoline in.

 

So five pillars of fire and smoke went up in the air. They didn't steer left and boogied off. I said, that's why I didn't run. And that's why I ended up being a taker.

 

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when you came back so i guess by the time you came back it was sixty eight and right after the new york riots where did you move to when you came back because i mean you've been in i know you live in northfield near law firms in newfield but where did you land when you first came back well i mean i was a statement my parents for couple of months uh... at time and daughter and uh...

 

She learned how to walk in her apartment, in her apartment. They had a apartment in East Orange, and that's where we stayed. And then I'm...

 

It's really strange. My father had a friend who had a friend in Atlantic City who was looking for a lawyer. So he called me up and asked me if I wanted to interview for the job. I said, sure. So he came down, did my interview, and he offered me a job. And I got thinking. We just had the riots in Newark, and I could see me. I could have had a job with a pretty prestigious law firm in Newark because one of the partners was a

 

good friend of my father's. And I said, you know, I can see myself standing on the street corner in Newark about 10 o 'clock at night and wondering if I'm going to get home. So we came down to South Jersey, beside from wondering what kind of place I came to when I, when the first sign to get off the parkway was Pleasantville. And then I saw signs for bargain town and saying, is this a comic book I'm going to? But, but.

 

So we landed in Northfield and that was January of 66.

 

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66 or 68? 68. 68. 69. January of 69. Yeah. Got it. January of 69. Who was the lawyer that offered you your first job? Daniel De Breer. Who was it? He's a Daniel De Breer. De Breer and Wallin. They did, as far as I was concerned, they did, they had an insurance company represented. So he did a lot of personal injury stuff. I know in general, he had, he wasn't, Air Force Brigadier General. In fact,

 

He was on the same promotion list that Jimmy Stewart was on. They held up the promotion of all the named brigadier generals because somebody didn't think it's appropriate for an actor to be a brigadier general. Stewart eventually got his promotion and so did my boss. How about that? I never knew. I saw if I suspect was because of my military connection, they gave me a chance.

 

And his partner was a municipal court judge in Absicans. So I didn't do any criminal work that were all working for them because your buddy basically barred me. Now you are currently still in the National Guard. So my question is, you're retired. You're retired. OK. When you came back. I'm getting a pension and enjoying every minute of it. Thank you. Good. Congratulations. When you came back, did you stay in the reserves or how did you? I know you spent a long time.

 

in the National Guard. That was a big part of your life. So how did that happen? When I came back, I saw here I am, I'm armored trained, and I enjoyed playing with the things. So I knew the 50th Army Division was in New Jersey and I looked around and of course the phone book only listed the Atlantic City Artillery Battalion. And I said, I'm not really interested in that. So I went to the reserve placed in

 

in Northfield and got sort of in different feeling from that. And so I contacted the tank battalion in Vineland and they had an opening. So in March of.

 

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I would say 71, joined the National Guard.

 

I found an article in the Bridgton Evening News from 1977 and it was, there was a Memorial Day parade in Bridgton in 1977 and you were at that point in time, I believe, were either a captain or maybe a major for the third battalion, 102nd National Guard out of Vineland.

 

and they quoted you because you were speaking at the Broad Street Cemetery where the parade landed. And I remember those parades that went up and down Broad Street in Bridgeton. I was probably at that parade. But I didn't remember seeing you there. All right. So but you were talking about the importance of the flag and the importance of a strong military. So.

 

You had, I guess, been in the National Guard for what, six or seven years at that point in time? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, it was, it seemed you have a very culture shock shift from the Army, active Army to the National Guard. In the, in the active Army, they were really very strong on, uh, officers not associating with enlisted. And the reason for that is obviously if you get to know and like these guys, you're not going to send them off to get killed.

 

which is part of the problem of being a military officer. So, we come to the National Guard and everybody's on a first name basis with the officers in the last stage. It really was like a culture shock. I can remember going up to Fort Dix and it was a typical Fort Dix cold, nasty day. And one of the guys comes up to me and says, are you cold? At that point, I was still a captain. And so I said, yeah.

 

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And he said, here, he holds out a bottle of brandy. I said, do that here on active duty? What did I know? National Guard, they don't have the same rule or didn't have the same rule. They've tightened it up a lot. Because I can remember we had a guy who was captain. He'd been a captain forever when I was on active duty. And they court martialed him because he was drunk in the field.

 

and he was just a controller of an exercise. So he actually didn't put anyone in danger with that, but the point is that's how seriously they took drinking on active duty. Whereas in the National Guard, the rule of thumb at that time was when they're done with the training for the day, out come the bonfires and the beer and it's a whole other world. When did you retire from the National Guard?

 

69 I think, I mean 89. 89, 89. Yeah because...

 

It's a long convoluted story, but to be the head of the National Guard in New Jersey, you have to be at least a colonel. You have to have had 10 prior years service in the National Guard. They apparently put that through in order to prevent some reservists from being made the adjutant general of the state of New Jersey. Well, that was the year when Jim Florio ran for governor and my landlord was very active in Florio's punk.

 

congressional campaign, although in fact he had very little to do with his gubernatorial campaign. Rumor had it that if Florio got elected, I'd be the next adjutant general, which is not a job I want. Two stars, I used to have the rank, but if you want to give me two stars, make me division commander. Anyhow, in order to ensure that I wasn't...

 

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Eligible.

 

The then current National Guard Asst. General said that he was going to, I thought that was the big commander. He said he was going to.

 

He assigned me to someplace which called for a rank lower than mine and I would be forced out. So he said, you can exit gracefully. So I did. So sounds like politics. What you find in the National Guard is not only internal politics, but real life politics. I saw one battalion commander who was well -connected politically. He was not a very good battalion commander. One of the years we went to Fort Drum, our...

 

The 24th Infantry Division provided the officers who were to evaluate what we were doing in our training. And the division commander of the 24th at that time was General Schwarzkopf. And I remember he found that in this, and that guy's mentioning his battalion, some troops hadn't been fed. They'd been left out in an outpost, a guard post and not fed. And he came storming into our.

 

CP and threw his helmet around and said the management relieved on the spot. Now one of the things you don't do in the National Guard is relieve people on the spot who have political connections. So again, real politics and National Guard politics both play. Right. So the whole time you were in the National Guard, you were still practicing law. And how long did you stay with that?

 

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that first firm out of Atlantic City.

 

I want to say three years. I think I was in 73. And is that when you went out on your own or no? No, then I went to, I got an offer of substantial increase in salary and I took it. But the firm I went to, they had recently taken over, they did personal injury work too, defense work. They had taken over representation of all state, which

 

put a real strain on their assets. So they did hire some new lawyers to fill the hole until they got organized on that. And then in 75, I said, I'm gonna take a chance. And the guy who was my returning commander had this building in Newfield. He offered me $135 a month furnished. Couldn't beat that with a stick. So the office that you're sitting in now, you've been there since 1975?

 

Correct. Now I own the building.

 

Wow. And you have been on your own since 1975? Yep. Wow. That's impressive. I mean...

 

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Now you right now, you don't have a secretary right now, do you? Nope. Did you ever at any point in time? For a brief period of time, I had my landlord's sister -in -law and there was a falling out of his family and so he told her to go. Never darken his door again. So I had no secretary.

 

I just didn't know. One of the most valuable courses I ever took was a junior high when I took personal typing. And I found out that I could type faster than half the people who worked for me when I was in the army. Because I spent most of my time in the army as the adjutant, S1 as they call it, because that's where they like to put people who have legal training. One of the things I got to do was when we had a court martial, I got to pick who was going to be the

 

prosecutor who's going to be the defense attorney and then the brigade would task a battalion, another battalion to provide the actual members of the court mushroom. So I mean if I had been a nasty person I could really have put the irons to some of these people by giving them a lousy defense attorney or ensuring they got nothing but the best. But you were never in the JAG? No. No.

 

Now if I wanted to go, if I wanted to be in the Jag, I would have had to give them four years. And I thought, I really want to be in private practice someday. And I don't want to give them four years to do that. So three years, I was good enough and I left.

 

So when you go into practice in 1975, what type of law? I mean, you had been, it sounds like you've been primarily handling either personal injury or insurance defense. Is that right up until that point? Yeah. Well, I did a little bit of everything that came down. As all good soul practitioners have to do. Yeah.

 

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And I did some divorce, which I find very off putting. I'm really not into fighting over pots and pans and some of the antics. I mean, it wasn't on my watch. The first firm I worked for, they inherited a guy who's he and his spouse did the classic. Nonsense. Whoever was off at work, the other one would pull up in the van and offload.

 

property from the house, the former Marital residence. And I mean, it was back and forth they were doing this. And I said, this is not my idea of an interesting thing to do. So, you know, in fact, I want to, I think it was in 75, it may have been early in 76 that I applied to the public defender's office in Cumberland County. And they asked me, would I be willing to go to Kate makes at that time Cumberland ran Kate may. Um,

 

sure. And you mean you mean doing pool work? I beg your pardon? Do you mean doing pool work or do you mean? Yeah, yeah, pool work. Okay. And so you, that's when you basically started doing criminal defense because you've become known as a formidable criminal defense attorney in Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic counties. And you've been doing it and you still are.

 

uh... practice criminal defense and doing poor work in those counties uh... not come on i don't know anymore okay there was a period of time one of the staff attorneys when i made a baby so they needed somebody to be what they call per diem temporary help and i took that job and i said i really can't can't handle cumberland county and let it's just up the road relatively speaking and uh...

 

stopped doing Cumberland work. That was just recently because I remember that. No, no, I've done that twice. Okay. This I'm talking about the first time that's what when I stopped doing Cumberland because in the interim they put in more traffic lights. If I what used to take a little more than an hour now took about a good hour and a half. To get up to Bridgeton? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But talk to me a little bit.

 

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You know, I'm originally from Bridgton and actually I have a podcast called the Bridgton Beacon where I interview folks in the Bridgton, South Jersey area. So I think actually this interview will get placed on two separate podcasts. So I'm interested just to talk for a couple of minutes about Cumberland County courts and what it was like.

 

back when you started doing criminal defense work in the 70s and 80s because I did a little search through the rich naming news and there were just so many articles of matters where you are named in articles for cases that you handled up there. So I'm curious what the court was like back then in Cumberland specifically.

 

We had a couple, there's one judge, well, when I was in high school, I took Latin because somebody told me that Latin would be helpful if you could go into law. So I did three and a half years of Latin because in my school district, the ninth grade, we had a junior high school senior high system.

 

10th grade was when you moved to senior high. Then ninth grade they had a half semester, a half year Latin course. So that's why it's three and a half years. And I met Randall one judge, Judge Miller, who actually did know some of the more obscure Latin terms that were used in the law. But I found out quickly, it didn't matter. Aside from habeas corpus, that's the only Latin I've ever had you make any use of.

 

I also know a game in which it's known as Korat Lex. The law doesn't trouble itself with trifles.

 

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That's true. That's true. But you handled a number of trials. Yeah. There was a time one year when I did more trials than the staff attorney. I believe it. How many trials do you think you've done? Do you have any idea in your whole entire career? 58 career. How many trials you've had? I would guess over 100. I have a written down someplace. Just

 

One loss and what have you, just for my own amusement. Wait, one loss in all those years? I say, no, no, no, no, no. One slash loss. Got it. Got one. W -O -N. In my opinion, when the defense attorney wins, means somebody made a mistake because the prosecutor should not be agreeing cases that are losers. You shouldn't.

 

So either the prosecutor, when it came time to negotiate, made an outrageous demand or sometimes you have clients who just don't see the life. So, I mean, I would guess that realistically, I've won about a third of the cases I've been in on.

 

Did you never considered becoming a prosecutor? Sometimes you see people with a military background kind of move towards or become attracted to doing prosecution. No, I had literally no interest in that. And the other thing I had no interest in was being a judge. I never thought I had all the answers.

 

and judges have to have all the answers to do any job right. One of the guys that was a judge who always impressed me was Steve Kleiner. At the time he was appointed, he was, I believe, the youngest judge in the state of New Jersey. And one of the things he could do is he could charge a jury without using notes. It's impressive. Wow. That was Cumberland County, Cumberland County Superior Court.

 

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Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he could, I mean, he just sat there and talked to them and he talked in very clear English. I said one, one of the times I said, you know, I think I'm going to appeal your case because if Supreme Court wanted that much clarity in your charges, they'd have written it that way. I mean, he was good at it. Really good at it. Wow. So, you know, you have been a practicing attorney.

 

for what, just under 60 years, 58 years by my math. And I'm really curious, there's a couple things. First, just how the practice, not just of criminal law, but the practice of law in general has changed. I know it's changed a lot, but big picture, how has it changed in your opinion? For the good, for the bad?

 

sideways. I mean, the changes, oddly enough, the change, if to talk to a layman would probably think that these are the most significant changes. They occurred at points where in my career where...

 

it really didn't make that big a difference. For example, you used to have voir dire, which was individual lawyer got to question each individual juror to determine whether they had any prejudices or otherwise. And then the abolished it and went to the system they have now where the judge has a list of proof questions to ask and he reads, everybody gets a little piece of paper with those questions on them. Then we go through that. So there's rarely any ...

 

direct input from the attorneys in terms of question of juror. Well, when they abolished that just before I tried, not just before, but a couple of months before I tried my first case, I never got experience for it here. Therefore, the change didn't affect me. Similarly,

 

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I wasn't practicing very long when they changed the rules. We used to practice under what they call revised rules. And you may see some citations to RR. They changed the present rules. I wasn't really settled in with the revised rules as far as that goes. So it was not a big transition for me. And the third thing which one would think would be chaotic would be to shift the adoption of Title II -C.

 

the criminal code used to be all criminal laws were under 2 -2 -A. Well, when I started doing the criminal work, again, I hadn't been practicing doing criminal work for all that long when they went to 2 -C. So, you know, I hadn't mastered 2 -A by any means and how I got an instrument from scratch. So those changes have all gone on for I was here and didn't have much impact on me.

 

I'll tell you one change this does have an impact on me because I'm not on the morning person. What started at 10 o 'clock? Really? Yeah. Well, they probably did they go a lot later? Did they did they end a lot later? No, 430. OK. So then some decided we should be able to at least an hour or more. No, the beauty part about well.

 

When I first started out, the Atlantic County Civil Court was in the Guaranteed Trust Building, North Carolina and Atlantic Avenue, a bank building, and they were on the seventh floor. Of course, now they have a brand new building, catty corner for where they were, where it's just nothing but civil, federal year divorces and all the personal injury cases there. And of course, the criminal course where it is.

 

But that's in a new courthouse. But the rise paperwork, one reason why I don't enjoy doing personal injury work is a paperwork, as far as I'm concerned. But the paperwork as far as, I mean, a police force used to be a couple of pages long, now a minimum of six pages. And if you got some of a weird situation, if it's a...

 

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nor will they release that case, you've got to fill out a form for that. This is a sex case, you've got to fill out a couple of forms for that. This is that. And even to reach the point as you're aware, where you've got signed forms, you have to sign that say you understand your appeal rights. And I can tell you, my experience was that the most, a lot of defendants, as soon as they heard the judge pronounce the sentence, which presumably was in accordance with the plea agreement,

 

and they were satisfied they got what they thought they were going to get. They started talking to the lawyer, they're not paying attention to anything else they started saying, which did include telling them about your right to appeal. And I suspect what happened is somebody appealed to the appellate division and said, I didn't really, nobody told me I had a right to appeal. Right. So now they have to form you to fill out. Right. So I mean, it's just, there's a lot of papers that have been generated by...

 

just over the years, they become more of a nuisance than anything else. If you go through the standard plea form, most, not most, a lot of the case, a lot of the questions they have in there don't really apply to your case. One of the things that bothers me is you've got two lines, one of which talks about if you're on probation, you want to move out of state, you have to create a probation officer, which I can understand.

 

but it has a separate entry for sex cases. But they don't have an NA block. They don't have a sex case. What do you fill in? Right.

 

impressed, I mean, with all of the electronic discovery now, for the five or so years that I was in private practice, the amount of time that it took to request discovery, get discovery, download discovery, then copy that electronic discovery to give a copy to the client. I don't know how you do it without

 

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any kind of administrative help. I mean, that in and of itself is a full -time job plus. I like trees just like everybody else, but I really liked when you were able to just have the paper discovery. And same with interviews. I mean, you used to be able to get them on disks, and that was when I was a prosecutor, we would copy disks, and at least then you could pop them in and listen to them. Now...

 

You have all these criminal cases, Steve, in all these different counties, and you've got to download and somehow be able to view body -worn camera footage, which never works half the time, and get copies of that to your client. I mean, how in the world do you do it?

 

Walden hours. I mean, on a typical night, if I get home before eight, that's good. And I mean, you're spending. And I work, I work five, six days a week, Monday through Saturday, doing something. I would imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, that you must enjoy it. I mean, you've been, you know, doing it for. Yeah, the thing about.

 

criminal cases, problem solving. And then, you know, if you can find the hole that you need, you know, call it a loophole, but there's some, some problem with the discovery that you've heard in the discovery, which reveals that there's a problem with the case, you can do some interesting things. Some cases I have are stone losers. The biggest problem is convincing the client that well, I said a guy who outfoxed himself, he

 

He had a plea offer, which I've recommended he seriously take because his actual exposure is humongous. And he refused. And so we just got, they tried his violations of probation. And the prosecutor basically is asking for 12 years, five years on one and seven on the other, which was a second degree crime. Whether he gets it or not, I don't know, but.

 

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that is my client's plea offer was originally five or 10 to 42 months. So and we haven't even gotten to the consequences of the case itself because that that offer is off the table. Just outfoxed themselves. So for those one of the things that is good is if you can convince the client.

 

to what's really in his best interest, not what the boys wearing orange jumpsuits who are practicing law in the jail tell him. Right. Right. Well, I mean, do you think the advent of criminal justice reform and the elimination of cash bail has been a good thing or not a good thing?

 

I would say by and large it is a good thing.

 

Although I didn't find that the, when you're talking 10 % you have to lay down on all the cash bails to get a bail bondsman. It's not that onerous. And there are people who are locked up, who are really big players in perhaps a rather large scheme of some sort. You know, one of those ones with 30 or 40 defendants listed.

 

and you know your guy I got one where I the discovery I got was basically bank records and you mentioned my client's name and that's

 

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I want to say over 500 pages of stuff I had to print. You talk about running this stuff off. Now I have no, after print I have to look forward to see if it finishes its name and all of it is bank records.

 

What do you think is your most memorable trial?

 

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Oh, I had one which was led sexual contact.

 

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girl claimed that the it was her grandfather was touching her where you shouldn't be. But she also changed her story several times and testified that while all this was supposedly going on that they're placed down at the shore.

 

parents were right outside the door. You should never contacted them. So I won that one and that really surprised me because my experience is that people who get on those kinds of cases, the jurors often want to send a message. I had another case where this guy was again a sex case and I'm still convinced that

 

There were jurors who had absolutely strong bias against those kinds of offenses. And we're just waiting because it's one of the few cases that I lost that I couldn't figure out why. And I think it has to be the nature of the allegations that he said, oh, somebody's guilty of this. Let's punish them all. Well, those cases are very hard. I handled them as a prosecutor and also as a defense attorney. And they're very, very difficult. But you?

 

You know, we had a trial together. I don't know if you remember it or not, but you beat me. It was my first jury trial in New Jersey. And it was counterfeit, counterfeit $20 bill case. And you, you really, I was very young, as I said, it was my first jury trial. But you have a way with jurors to just...

 

speak to them like we're speaking right now and you really connect with jurors and I guess that's why you've had a hundred trials and been so successful.

 

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I remember that case vividly.

 

You did a heck of a job with not much to work with. Well, you said if a prosecutor loses a case, something must have gone wrong. But I think sometimes juries nullify if they think that, you know, we meaning prosecutors have kind of wasted their time. Yeah. So, you know, that was. His excuse was semi plausible. Right.

 

You always have that problem with counterfeit money, whether the guy really knew it was counterfeit and was passing it off that way, or as this guy claimed, where he just got it and changed for something and he pulled it out and paid his gas bill with that gasoline bill. I don't think your closing argument was very long, but it was succinct and to the point. I'm not good at long, drawn out arguments. I can't comprehend what a person can talk about.

 

Because one of the things is every case has two or three key items and either they go your way or they go the prosecutor's way. The rest of it is meaningless. Yeah. I mean, if you sit there and try and nitpick every little piece of issue, your eyes glaze over. Good advice for those that are listening. I want to talk to you for a couple of minutes about, you know, we've talked about the...

 

practice of law, but I want to talk to you about the business of the practice of law. And I think that that's really hard for many sole practitioners. And, you know, just being able to manage the business side of it. I mean, any advice for any young lawyers? I'm not good at that at all. I think a lot of...

 

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And that's the thing, a lot of attorneys are very, very good attorneys, but they're really not great business people. And then on the other hand, you have other attorneys that are good business people, but really probably shouldn't be in the courtroom. So to have both of them together, and you must be a good business person, you've been doing it for almost 60 years. So I just didn't know if you had any comments about that. Well, I mean, the thing is, I don't.

 

I don't do the kinds of things, I've never felt comfortable doing the kinds of things that bring in a lot of the high -priced businesses, cases.

 

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I don't join local clubs. I'm not a rotarian or anything. I don't mean to deprecate any of them, but a lot of people join so they can make contact there to get business. I'm not involved in that. What few organizations I participate in are things that I do because I want to do them for whatever reason.

 

I have a subscription, one of the things that's always fascinating me is the Roman army. And so I subscribe to the Journal of Roman Studies, which I used to call the pedants delight. But it's an annual thing that discusses various factors in Roman history, some of which is interesting to me, some of which I don't really care about.

 

Potts jar they found in some dig, doesn't impress me. But the point is that's something I enjoy Roman military history, so I get what I can about it. I've got a pile of books. And you have always been a history buff. I remember speaking to you years ago about history and the importance of history.

 

And I followed it through with I got interested in my family genealogy. And it's interesting that.

 

The internet has been very helpful. When I first started out doing this, after my father died, which is 1977, I picked up all his notes and he had a lot of material from various sources, but he didn't have a computer. They were just starting to come in with these computer genealogical programs. So I started putting the stuff up on there and it made a pattern. I could see who was relating to who.

 

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and piece together the family. So there has been one history that's now written by a guy, a lawyer, Syracuse lawyer, that he described the early generations of my family. And I think I've found enough evidence to correct and change that in terms of...

 

who was related to who and how. So that's basically the same thing. My family history is an interest just as is. I had ancestors that fought in the revolution. I lived in a town of Stillwater, New York. Stillwater, New York is just a fairly, not to us lazy, car -ridden people.

 

It's a fair walk, but it is an easy walk from Stillwater to the Saratoga Battle Pool. And he participated in that. Well, they did. He was a father and his two sons. My direct ancestor was 16 years old. And it was sort of interesting, because you dig into stuff, you find out what happened is they go out there in the daytime, and when night fell, they go back home. Wow. Show up the next day. Here I am.

 

Warfare was a lot and I did have one of one group of my family moved to Louisiana and one of them served in some Louisiana regiment in the Civil War and he published a book and he would go home for weeks on end. Nobody seemed to care. Wow. So it's a lot different. Yeah. Little sidelights. Yeah. And then.

 

I don't know that most people who even do research in my family are aware of that. Well, in the advent of ancestry .com or 23andMe, DNA testing, I think, has helped a lot of people find people in their family and learn more about their history. I actually subscribed recently to genealogybank .com and you can

 

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access newspapers from all over the country. And it's been really interesting to me. I don't know if you've ever checked that out, but very, very interesting. Speaking of Roman army and your interest in military history, I came across an article, gosh, I want to think it's from like the mid 80s where you and a group of other

 

gentlemen in the Northfield area were part of a basically like a club that did war games. Do you remember that? I remember that. Yeah, I got.

 

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bought one of these games, Avalon Hill games, Tactics 2. I couldn't figure out how to play it. And then when I was in the army, one of the guys, one of my friends, who actually was a true unicorn, he was a Harvard ROTC graduate. It's almost as a contradiction in terms, but he was a war gamer. He got me starting. This guy ended up working for the CIA. Oh, wow. Interesting fellow. Wow. And unfortunately, he died.

 

relatively young, I would say he was in his 40s, and came home one night, went up to lie down, just take a nap, never woke up. Well, I think that the importance of history can't be overstated for a lot of reasons. And, you know, it's neat to be able to speak with you today about, you know, the history of the practice of law.

 

in the South Jersey area for the last almost 60 years. And that's why I think it's so fun to have this conversation with you. I'm sure we could speak all day about things that have happened over the years and how that's led to changes in the system. Yeah, well, as I said, I'm convinced that it was just because of that that we have the appeal rights for me.

 

fill out because somebody whined and said he didn't know yet. He had a right to take any appeal until much later and he was out of time and thought of it as well. And then, you know, the myriad of papers when you put through a plea, depending upon the nature of the case, obviously reflect some problem that somebody conjured up to decide they were going to solve with making it fill out another form. Well, they want to... Go ahead.

 

I'm sure it's because they have had individuals who appeal their pleas. So they want to make sure that it's knowing, intelligent, voluntary, and it's a contract, right? So that's why it's recorded and all of that. But you're absolutely right. I mean, the amount of forms that have to be filled out for putting a case on the trial list.

 

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the changes I've noticed over the years. When I first started out, a lot of the defendants did what I like to call the code of the West, which was basically they got caught and there were a couple of other co -defendants and they're the ones responsible for whatever went on. I found that most of my clients step up and say, yeah, I did it and get their other people off the hook. But with the advent of the drug cases, that stopped.

 

It's a different clean telling. In fact, obviously as you will wear drugs have involvement in a lot of different cases. That commits a burglary. He's committing a burglary because he needs to sell some of the stuff he's going to grab so he can buy his next fix. And I think that that itself has changed a lot of what the practice law is about because on the other hand, in the same vein, thank God for drug court.

 

I think that's one of the better programs that seems to work. I had an experience. I was having to go to Shore Memorial for cardiac maintenance. And I ran into this guy. I didn't recognize him. He said, oh, you're Mr. Patrick. I said, yeah. He said, you saved my life. He was working there. He's wearing one of the maintenance uniforms. He had gotten into drug court, did it successfully, and now he's gainfully employed. And I felt really pleased. Yeah.

 

That's when you really are helping somebody else. Right. I mean, yeah, you think about if you can do that, and I'm sure you've done that for many, many people, but that makes it all worth it. That makes those late nights all worth it when someone says that to you, because that's what it's all about. I mean, you said at the beginning of this conversation that you knew early on you wanted to handle criminal law, and you have.

 

So what advice would you give to young lawyers?

 

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There's a lot of young lawyers out there. I mean, I, I, uh, yeah, there's too many. Well, I think sometimes that lawyers that haven't tried cases tend to, whether you're talking about a prosecutor or defense attorney, they, they often tend to overvalue their position. Um, so losing is sometimes the best way to learn.

 

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Would you do it all over again? Well, I would. Although I must say, I didn't encourage my children to go into going to law. You did or you did not? I did not. I did not. So I have no lawyers following me. My father had gone to law school. He went back in the old days. It was not uncommon for people to go to law school at night. Oh, wow.

 

Sorry, you went to what was then.

 

I mean, even then Mercer Beasley School of Law or might have been NERC Law School, it's now Rutgers and NERC. But he got his LOB. But by that time he was married and had a child. He couldn't in those days, you had to do nine months clerkship in some law firm. Not necessarily like a judge's law clerk that you work at the law firm for nine months and they got paid.

 

didn't work for my father so he never practiced. He never really encouraged me either way. He didn't discourage me either but it wasn't a matter of he sitting there saying, gee son, I'd like you to be a lawyer. That'd be a good thing for you. Do what I couldn't do. So I have his diploma.

 

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Well, there's a lot of sacrifices that you have to make when you're an attorney. I mean, you had a family, you had children, and you worked long hours, and you know, you... Yeah, every once in a while I'd come home and my wife had to say, who are you? Yeah. Your wife was a long -time English teacher at Holy Spirit, right? Absolutely right. I think they still talk about her over there.

 

Well, it's interesting. One of the deputy attorney generals came up to me the other day and asked me if I was related to somebody who taught her Holy Spirit. I said, yeah, she was my wife. And she was very, very fulsome in her praise, which I found very flattering because I always thought my wife was a good teacher. But you never know how the students perceive her.

 

Well, hopefully she didn't get too mad at you about your spelling.

 

She learned how to read my handwriting more to the point. I've seen your handwriting. You type up a lot of your plea forms if I'm not mistaken. Oh yeah. I remember that. I try to avoid forcing people to read my writing. So you put those plea forms right in the typewriter? Oh yeah, I have a typewriter. Yeah. I have an electric typewriter here and I also have my great aunts.

 

manual typewriter. Oh neat, I have a couple typewriters. But I just collect them, I don't use them.

 

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Well, the thing of, now of course you can upload forms they have more online. Most standard forms, their index system is terrible. So it's a matter of chance when you can stumble on the forms you need. Well, hopefully the AOC is listening. They can improve that. I don't think they listen to anybody. They do what they want to do. And if you don't like it, doesn't matter.

 

Do it.

 

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Well, I appreciate you taking the time today to speak with me. Not a problem. And I should have started with this, but sincerely, thank you for your service to the country and thank you for your service to all of the citizens of South Jersey that you have represented. As I point out to a lot of people in the three years I was in Germany, no Warsaw Pact troops came across the border, so I'm taking credit for that.

 

As you should, as you well should. All right, sir, thank you very, very much for today. I'm sorry we had a little bit of trouble there in the beginning, but I'm glad we pushed through and got this done. Okay, well, we enjoyed it. Yeah, if you want to come back, we can try it again. If you want me, if anybody's foolish enough to want to hear me rattle on, that's fine. I think most...

 

Most people are very happy to hear you speak. I told a couple people that I was going to be interviewing you today and many, many people said they were very excited to hear this. So thank you again. They're kidding you. They're saying it because they're polite. No, I don't think so. These aren't polite people.

 

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All right. Have a great afternoon and let's stay in touch. And I'm glad we ran into each other so we could set this up. Yeah, I miss working with you. I really do. I'm sorry. You know, if you've got to go where you got to go. But, you know, I just want to say I didn't comment on, although there are a lot more women in the profession, they all seem to have taken governmental jobs. I mean, I think the majority of the attorneys in the Cape Make Prosecutors Office are female. They are. I'm glad to see women in the biz. But...

 

At the same time, I used to work more defense people. It's a hard practice. Yeah, well, I can understand that. It's just, it's not a lot of like, I'm not completely satisfied myself. I understand about why so many women go to government jobs. Well, prosecutor, deputy attorney general and things like that. Because...

 

It's probably the hours. You may be right. My notion is I'll do whatever it takes. And there are some, you're right, there's some discovery. I've got one, a case I told you where I couldn't find my client's name. They've uploaded some 8 ,000 more pages worth of stuff that I've got to pull down and weed through to find out something.

 

mentions their name. You have to try to search. There's always a little scan. They open up bogus bank accounts, they put a little bit of money in there and then they would overdraw the account. All right. Yeah, I've had a few cases like that in my history. Yeah, I'm sure you have. Follow the money, Steve.

 

So she loves all. All right. Well, thank you again. And let's talk again soon. Anytime. All right. Have a good afternoon.