Sills Cummis Featured in Law360 Article

Sills Cummis Managing Partner Max Crane sat down for an interview with Law360 to discuss the Firm. The interview touched on a range of topics, including:

The Firm’s history. The Firm was founded in 1971 by Clive Cummis and Arthur Sills. “We operated from day one at the intersection of law, public policy/government and business,” Crane told Law360.

• As seen in the article, “The firm was launched in 1971 by founders including Clive Cummis, whom Newark’s The Star-Ledger described at his death in 2010 as ‘a monumental figure in New Jersey’s legal community and an influential Democratic fund-raiser who founded one of the state’s largest law firms and became an Atlantic City power broker through his expertise in casino law.’ Another key founder was Arthur J. Sills, who had served as New Jersey’s attorney general from 1962 to 1970 under Democratic Gov. Richard J. Hughes. Sills returned to private practice and died in 1982, according to his obituary in The New York Times. The law firm sought to help clients navigate state and federal regulatory hurdles in the business world, [Crane] said. ‘That world has only become more regulated, more political and harder to navigate in the 50-plus years since we were founded,’ Crane said. Among the politically connected attorneys working with the firm today are Jerry Zaro, who formerly held a variety of high-level New Jersey state government posts under both Democratic and Republican governors. Another recent hire was Thomas H. Prol, a past president of the New Jersey State Bar Association. … [Prol] was the bar association’s first openly gay leader.” In addition, Sills Cummis is home to Ted Zangari, who, along with his team, is well-known for their statewide land use and redevelopment practice.

The Firm’s practices. We are a full-service commercial law firm with approximately 140 attorneys. “The Firm’s work broadly speaking is about 60% litigation, 40% transactional, with that transactional work including real estate, corporate work and some tax matters, Crane said.”

• The Firm’s appellate practice, which is chaired by former New Jersey Attorney General and former New Jersey Supreme Court justice Peter Verniero, has had a number of recent noteworthy successes. “Peter, coming from his background as attorney general and on the Supreme Court, he doesn’t really get the routine calls,” said Crane. “He gets the calls that really are the ones that I’ll say impact government, business and public policy.”

• • The article discusses the New Jersey Supreme Court’s August 14, 2023 decision upholding the right of our client, a Catholic school within the Archdiocese of Newark, to discharge the teacher who acknowledged violating certain tenets of the Catholic Church. It was the first-of-its kind decision under the religious exception to New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination. In its decision, the Court overturned a novel rule of law that would have required a religious employer to investigate its entire staff to determine whether other employees had violated religious doctrine before taking employment action in any particular matter. The Court noted that such a rule was nowhere found in existing law as applied to either religious or secular employers.

• “The corporate practice is mainly mergers and acquisitions. ‘We buy and sell businesses,’ Crane said. ‘We represent companies that are raising money through the public markets. We represent lenders and some borrowers in the financial world. Our real estate lending practice is really extraordinarily sophisticated. Our corporate lending practice is principally middle market, but it’s very active.’”
• “The firm also works in bankruptcy cases, with a specialized focus on healthcare institutions, including hospitals and nursing homes, Crane said.”
• “Crane said the firm also has a good number of fashion and apparel clients as well as a life sciences practice – important in New Jersey, which has a large number of pharmaceutical companies.”
• “[Crane] said the firm is willing to try different things. ‘For example, we have a pretty large cannabis practice,’ Crane said, noting that some firms avoid that industry. ‘But interestingly, we were not afraid of it because of our history. So in the late ‘70s, we were one of the first firms that represented the casino industry coming into New Jersey, and the casino industry had all kinds of nefarious names and connections that made everybody very nervous.’”

The Firm’s value proposition. “I think we offer a much better financial proposition and risk-reward proposition to large companies, whether they’re public or private, in terms of … dollars that they’re spending, just by virtue of our proximity and our rates,” Crane said.

The Firm’s offices. While headquartered in Newark, NJ since its founding, the Firm has offices in New York City and West Palm Beach, FL. “… the firm operates in New York, too, but generally offers lower rates than firms based in New York.” “One of the firm’s biggest recent moves was opening an office in Florida. It opened May 1.”