My mentors… they’re leaving me all by myself.  Less than two years ago it was Mr. Lowenstein, not quite a mentor for he was already semi-retired when I joined his firm, and not an active litigator.  But I knew him, and he gave me warm encouragement and inspiration.

Now I’ve learned that earlier this month, his former partner, and one of the “names” at the old Lowenstein Sandler Kohl Fisher & Boylan, passed on.  Now this was a mentor, and of course not only to me, though, like all my mentors, not long enough; but he always remained a friend.  I could always count on his warm greeting on those increasingly rare visits to the old place; he might send a book that someone had sent him, with a handwritten note, though, saying why he thought it was for me.

I phoned Matty, and only one other older lawyer besides him, shortly after I started my own practice and was threatened by a punk associate  at Fox Rothschild with being personally sued — sued! — because of my aggressive work on a case which demolished his preposterous, junky claims against my client.  (This lad, who once reported to me at yet another former firm, was canned shortly thereafter and is now evidently off the grid.)  I knew that Matty was among the few who could tell me how I should handle it.

Read a minute.  The real story is the third paragraph, but to understand its significance you must read the first two.  Please, take a moment:

Mr. Boylan, or “Matty” as he was known to his contemporaries, joined the firm in 1969, when its offices were at 744 Broad Street in Newark. During his near 40-year career with Lowenstein Sandler, he was one of the driving forces of its growth into one of the largest and most respected law firms in the state. Mr. Boylan was on everyone’s short list of trial lawyers, sought after by the government, major corporations and individuals to handle their most important criminal and civil cases. His command of the facts and law, and quick wit, always served his clients well, whether he was appearing before a judge, jury or administrative agency. His clients at the firm included Fortune 500 companies in the pharmaceutical, chemical and communications industries, and also small shop owners and individuals faced with some injustice, whom he always found time to represent without expectation of payment.

Before joining Lowenstein Sandler, Mr. Boylan served as an Assistant United States Attorney, receiving a special commendation from then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy for the first successful prosecution of a high-ranking official of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In 1969, Mr. Boylan was appointed Special Prosecutor for murder trials in Passaic County, and in 1972 he was appointed by New Jersey Attorney General George Kugler, on the recommendation of Chief Justice Weintraub of the NJ Supreme Court, to prosecute a sitting State Cabinet officer. Mr. Boylan served as Director of the Division of Criminal Justice of the State of New Jersey during 1974 and 1975. After his return to Lowenstein Sandler, he was appointed to defend an accused Russian spy in a criminal trial in the United States District Court. Mr. Boylan was also a founding member of the New Jersey Trial Attorney Certification Board (1980 to 1984) and was elected a Fellow of both the American College of Trial Lawyers (1985) and the American Bar Foundation (1992). . . .

A generous colleague and friend, Mr. Boylan always made time to help other lawyers at the firm with whatever legal issue was troubling them. He was especially known for his mentorship of young litigators, whom he helped nurture by involving them in high-profile cases that would provide them an early opportunity to demonstrate their talents and make a name for themselves in the wider legal community. Mr. Boylan’s interest in others extended to secretaries and other staff; he rarely walked down the hall without stopping to inquire about the health of a family member who might be under the weather, or to exclaim about the latest baby photo. Moreover, he could be counted on to arrive with pizzas when others were working late, or when the press of work made them miss lunch. The Irish soda bread he always brought in for Saint Patrick’s Day was also a great hit.

Matty loved his people.  As I remember it, he was a good Catholic, too.  He really had a heart as big as all outdoors, where he should have brought those honking big stogies, too, but seeing as he was Matt Boylan what could you say?

There’s hardly room for real characters like Matt Boylan in the upper echelons of corporate law any more.

Believe me.

A lot of things are looking different from how they once did, aren’t they?

While experiencing serial delays along New Jersey’s government transit system, I decided to take a long, hard look at the contacts database in my BlackBerry.  Boy, there were a lot of names in there of people regarding whom I have been seriously fooling myself for an embarrassingly long time.

There were people who are never going to pay those invoices.  People who are never going to get back to me about lunch and people I have succeeding in dodging for lunch.  People who are never going to call me to handle a case.  People who were done with me.  There were people who, for the life of me, I cannot remember why, or how, or really even who.

Gone, gone, gone.

The BlackBerry weighs the same now, but the weight of my unrealistic expectations is a lot lighter.