I was born in New York City into a poor Italian-American family. I attended school in New York and held a variety of jobs.
Eventually, I left New York and went to Law School in Arkansas. That was quite a change! I applied myself and worked hard. In June 1980, I passed the bar examination as the highest scorer for the entire state of Arkansas.
After law school, I obtained employment in New Jersey. In 1983, I moved to South Jersey and I immediately fell in love with the area (Philly fanatics be warned: you can take the Knicks fan out of New York, but you can’t take the New York out of the Knicks fan). I worked a tad under 9 years for the Public Defender Office. In 1992, I opened my criminal defense practice in South Jersey.