Steven Richman

Member
Clark Hill PLC

What is your proudest professional achievement?

I have staked out a position as a thought leader in the international legal community in two areas — business and human rights and legal ethics and artificial intelligence. I have done that through my position in 2017–2018 as chair of the International Law Section of the American Bar Association, and then as an officer, and currently chair, of the Bar Issues Commission of the International Bar Association. Through these positions and work I have been part of the international dialog.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

I see the politicization of the practice as law as the most disruptive change. Lawyers are officers of the court, and the U.S. has a 250-year tradition of representing unpopular clients. The current call for boycott and for certain law firms to not represent certain clients because of the industry of their clients. It becomes part of the broader polarization in society and contradicts the principle that lawyers should not be identified with their clients.

What was the best career advice you’ve ever received (or what’s your best advice for the next generation)?

Practice with people you like and respect, and who like and respect you, and the money will take care of itself.

Keith Roberts

Member and chair, Litigation
Brach Eichler LLC

What is your proudest professional achievement?

My appointment to the board of St. James Health is a meaningful opportunity that allows me to give back. The leadership team at SJH is outstanding, and the facility’s mission of providing quality healthcare to the underserved community is certainly one that I am proud to support.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

I think many lawyers today will identify AI as a potential major disruption for a host of reasons. The concern for quality of work product, the risk of inaccurate information, or fabricated case citations, and of course, the belief that AI will ultimately replace certain tasks that lawyers perform daily.

What was the best career advice you’ve ever received (or what’s your best advice for the next generation)?

Undoubtably, the best advice I ever received was to never be concerned with earning money in your chosen profession. Instead, focus on excellence and being the best professional you can be, then the money will follow. All true, in my opinion.

Brett Rosen

Partner
Proetta, Oliver & Rosen LLC

What is your proudest professional achievement?

In 2024, during a high-stakes domestic violence trial where my client was facing over five years in state prison. The stakes were elevated because the alleged victim was a New Jersey police officer. By meticulously dismantling the prosecution’s case at trial, I successfully applied for and secured a directed verdict from the judge, resulting in a complete acquittal of all charges. As a certified criminal trial attorney by the Supreme Court of New Jersey, this milestone stands out as my proudest.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

The most disruptive change over the coming year will be the friction caused by the full-scale operationalization of artificial intelligence in high-stakes litigation. In 2026, AI adoption across the legal profession has surged, moving rapidly from an experimental concept to an essential, daily workflow. The legal professionals who will lead the market are those who understand that while AI is a devastatingly effective tool for discovery and data analysis, it is not a silver bullet.

Donald Scarinci

Firm managing partner
Scarinci Hollenbeck LLC

What is your proudest professional achievement?

My proudest achievement was leading Scarinci Hollenbeck through the pandemic by recognizing that the legal industry was changing for good and acting decisively on it. We pioneered work-life integration, relocated to space built for how attorneys actually practice today, and continued to grow rather than retreat. The result is a firm that emerged stronger, more competitive, and better positioned to serve clients than the one we had before.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

An economic downturn will be the most disruptive force, and it demands a deliberate pivot rather than a reaction. We are growing our bankruptcy and creditors rights practice, expanding litigation, and fortifying our corporate section with a sharper focus on family business M&A and restructuring work. Firms that anticipate where clients will need help, instead of waiting for the slowdown to arrive, will be the ones that come out ahead.

Matthew Schiller

Partner
Murphy Schiller & Wilkes LLP (MSW)

What is your proudest professional achievement?

My proudest achievement is co-founding Murphy Schiller & Wilkes LLP with my partners, Chris Murphy, Kellen Murphy and Charlie Wilkes. For over a year before our January 2020 launch, we met weekly to shape our vision for an elite, full-service commercial real estate law firm. Watching MSW – and its attorneys and staff – grow into an extended family has been the opportunity of a lifetime.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

I look forward to AI’s continued integration into legal practice and the ways it will reshape our profession in the coming year. In particular as a real estate attorney, I’m excited to see AI sharpen due diligence and speed deal execution. As AI reshapes how our clients operate – from lenders to developers to private equity – it will inevitably change what they expect from outside counsel: less document production, more strategic judgment. That shift is one I welcome.

Melanie Scroble

Shareholder
Ansell Grimm & Aaron PC

What is your proudest professional achievement?

My proudest professional achievement was becoming a shareholder at Ansell Grimm & Aaron. Having worked at the firm for many years while juggling professional and family life as a young mom, being welcomed by my colleagues into their family was an unforgettable moment. I realized then that you can have a successful career without ever missing a talent show or soccer game. I am thrilled to be at a firm that supports working parents and promotes a family atmosphere both in and out of the office.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

I am proud that my firm is already at the cutting edge of using AI to enhance our services. AI has transformed my practice, saving me time on routine tasks so I can focus more on high-level matters. If not closely monitored and regulated, however, AI will cause significant disruption in the legal industry. I foresee many bumps in the road if people use AI to generate and review work without a lawyer’s advice, and if young lawyers fail to hone their skills or learn from their own experiences.

Susan Sharko

Partner
Faegre Drinker

What is your proudest professional achievement?

The many young lawyers I have trained and mentored over the years, making them more dangerous to our adversaries than they were to our clients; multinational mass tort settlements I designed and negotiated; pro bono asylum work on behalf of Afghans who worked to support the U.S.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

The incursion of the executive branch on the judiciary.

What was the best career advice you’ve ever received (or what’s your best advice for the next generation)?

God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason.

Nancy Erika Smith

Partner
Smith Mullin

A nationally recognized civil rights attorney, Smith has a reputation for fighting and winning high-profile employment law cases. Since co-founding Smith Mullin in Montclair with her husband Neil Mullin, her 30-plus year career has included several important victories in cases against NJ Transit, the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, WWOR-TV, Prudential Insurance Co., Rutgers University, Fox News and IBM Corp. She’s also earned numerous accolades, including several years on NJBIZ’s Law Power 50.

One of her latest legal battles unfolded in Newark, where she represented Mayor Ras Baraka in a lawsuit against interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba over his arrest on a trespassing charge at a federal immigration detention facility. The suit claims the Trump-appointed federal prosecutor pursued the case out of political spite.

And, it’s not the first time Smith has taken aim at Habba. Smith also represented a former server at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster who alleges she was sexually harassed and coerced into sex by a supervisor, then tricked into signing an illegal non-disclosure agreement by Habba, who previously served as the president’s longtime personal attorney.

Jennifer Phillips Smith

Partner
FBT Gibbons LLP

What is your proudest professional achievement?

A redevelopment attorney’s work often produces tangible, lasting results. I have felt proud when a deal’s pressure has yielded affordable housing in Newark, a new medical school on a former corporate campus or an oceanfront hotel rising from a failed project. Recently, I have been especially proud to watch a client’s transformational redevelopment efforts take shape through new construction in Sayreville.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

This year, I have seen firsthand how law firm consolidation is continuing to bring both disruption and opportunity to the legal industry. Through the formation of FBT Gibbons LLP, we have expanded our talented team, broadened our market reach, and deepened our expertise. Law firms this year will continue to face the choice of whether or not to embrace modernization through consolidation.

Calvin Souder

Managing partner and founder
Souder Law Group LLP

What is your proudest professional achievement?

My proudest professional achievement was helping the City of Newark comply with its federal consent decree for public safety. At the time, it stood as one of the largest public-private partnerships in the country. Playing a vital role in an initiative of that scale – in my own hometown, no less – has meant the world to me personally, and it served as a pivotal springboard for my law practice.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

I think AI is a major disruptor. It delivers unmatched efficiency and eliminates much of the routine work — and the more you use it, the more it learns, continually driving efficiency higher. While much remains to be tested, AI has already caused a significant shift in how we operate, particularly as real estate lawyers, but across the practice of law as a whole. My caution to those who aren’t keeping pace: an industry that already doesn’t tolerate delay will leave them behind.

Tami Bogutz Steinberg

Shareholder
Flaster Greenberg PC

What is your proudest professional achievement?

My proudest professional achievement is becoming the first woman to lead one of Flaster Greenberg’s largest departments, first as chair of the Business & Corporate Law Department and now as chair of the Business Transactions Department. In a field once dominated by men, this role reflects the confidence my partners have placed in me and allows me to mentor the next generation of attorneys, proving that talent, hard work and leadership create opportunity.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

The most disruptive change will be clients increasingly relying on AI for legal research, analysis and contract drafting. AI is a powerful tool, but it cannot replace legal judgment. Even if an AI-generated document is 95% accurate, the remaining 5% can create significant risk in complex transactions. The challenge for lawyers won’t be competing with AI — it will be educating clients on its limitations and the enduring value of experienced legal counsel.

Mark Tabakin

Partner
Scarinci Hollenbeck LLC

What is your proudest professional achievement?

Among my proudest achievements is developing practical solutions to complex client problems in ways that let clients move forward without litigation, conflict or disruption. Whether reorganizing a management structure, negotiating a contract or navigating a sensitive institutional issue, I take satisfaction in achieving the result quietly and effectively. The most gratifying work often prevents a crisis from ever materializing and leaves the client steady, prepared and well-advised.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

The real disruption is not that lawyers will use AI more. It is that legal work will no longer be produced primarily through lawyer hours. Routine drafting, research, document review, and contract analysis will move faster with fewer people, pressuring the billable-hour model. Value will shift toward judgment, strategy, advocacy and quality control. Strong lawyers grow more valuable; weak ones become easier to spot. Junior training must be rebuilt around supervision and oversight.

Dennis Toft

Chair, Environmental Group
Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi PC (CSG Law)

What is your proudest professional achievement?

My proudest professional achievement is my role in helping to shape the development of New Jersey environmental law over the last 40 years and seeing how it has impacted many of our clients’ projects. I was involved in the enactment of the Brownfields Law and in both iterations of the Site Remediation Reform Act (which created the LSRP Program) and these statutes have greatly improved the process of remediation in New Jersey and facilitated contaminated property transactions.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

The most disruptive change in the legal industry is the generational shift in the environmental realm. There’s a knowledge and experience gap in the practice area between people of my generation and the younger people coming up who are very good. The younger people are great, but there’s this big middle gap of experienced practitioners that is going to be harder to fill. It is incumbent on us to impart our knowledge of the law – and how it’s applied – to the younger generation of practitioners.

Peter Torcicollo

Co-managing partner
FBT Gibbons LLP

What is your proudest professional achievement?

I am proud to have led the amazing Gibbons firm from 2022–2026 as its managing director, leading it to its most successful years in its 100-year history by any measure. More recently, I helped the firm navigate a historic merger, creating FBT Gibbons, a national middle market law firm, which launched Jan. 1 of this year. The experience has been exhilarating, and the entire firm is excited about stepping into the future together.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

It’s probably no secret that generative artificial intelligence is, and will likely remain, the most disruptive force for change in the coming year (and beyond).

What was the best career advice you’ve ever received (or what’s your best advice for the next generation)?

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Everything in this business (and in life) takes time, so don’t try to rush it.

Christopher Warren

New Jersey managing partner
Falcon Rappaport & Berkman LLP

What is your proudest professional achievement?

Turning Moral Machine into a recognized voice on AI governance and legal ethics and pairing it with real public service. I founded and chair the Hudson County Bar Association’s AI Committee, now releasing its first advisory opinion; sit on the New Jersey State Bar’s AI Committee; and serve on the New Jersey Supreme Court’s District VI Ethics Committee. Translating ethics guidance into frameworks lawyers can use means shaping how the profession adopts AI responsibly, not commenting from the sidelines.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

The collapse of the billable hour as a unit of value. As agentic AI compresses work that once took days into hours, the client should gain from the lawyer’s efficiency, not pay more for it. I build bespoke agentic workflows for each client and turn that efficiency into flat, predictable pricing; real savings for clients. Legacy hourly attorneys can’t compete. The disruption isn’t the technology; it’s a 100-year-old billing model that modern attorneys can no longer honestly defend to N.J. businesses.

Jonathan Wishnia

Managing partner
Lowenstein Sandler LLP

What is your proudest professional achievement?

Earning the trust and support of my partners to serve as managing partner of Lowenstein Sandler, following my work as co-chair of our Vision 2030 Strategic Plan and as hiring partner. Over the past two decades, Lowenstein has undergone a remarkable transformation, becoming a leading firm recognized for excellence across a broad range of sectors and practices. It is an extraordinary honor to help shape the firm’s next chapter and to build on the momentum created by so many before me.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

AI, though the pertinent question is how to embrace it. At Lowenstein, we view AI three ways: 1, as a tool that augments, rather than replaces, human judgment; 2, as an opportunity to provide new legal services for our clients; and 3, as a way to connect our world-class business professionals with clients confronting their own technological challenges. Firms that distinguish themselves will not simply adopt AI. They will thoughtfully integrate it in ways that create measurable client value.

David Wolfe

Co-managing partner
Skoloff & Wolfe PC

What is your proudest professional achievement?

As a real estate tax professional, my proudest achievement is that I have become one my clients’ key strategic advisors. We help clients make their most important decisions, whether to proceed with a development or acquisition. Working creatively with our clients, I have seen our counsel result in transformative developments and billions in acquisitions. We have also reduced our clients’ assessments by billions of dollars, ensuring that they can maximize the value of their portfolios.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

Like many of my colleagues, I foresee the continued adoption of artificial intelligence as being the factor that will most disrupt the legal market this year. Firms will continue to grapple with how best to adopt its extraordinary capabilities in an ethical fashion.

What was the best career advice you’ve ever received (or what’s your best advice for the next generation)?

Get involved in your community. Get involved in your industry. Get involved with a local charity. Find something, outside the law, about which you can be passionate, and “get involved,.” Your life will be fuller, and it will help you greatly in your profession.

Jonathan Wolfe

Co-managing partner
Skoloff & Wolfe PC

What is your proudest professional achievement?

I have had the incredible opportunity to handle some of the largest divorce cases in the country and a variety of complex business disputes. I would say that the thing that I am most proud of is the trust our clients place in me and our firm to handle their most sensitive and important matters.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

AI. Like many firms, we are actively working to integrate AI into our practice. I believe there are incredible opportunities and efficiencies that can be unlocked for the benefit of our clients. That said, together with the positive impact, I expect this year will see continued growing pains as the tools are misused or misunderstood by both lawyers and litigants. It will certainly be an interesting year.

What was the best career advice you’ve ever received (or what’s your best advice for the next generation)?

Focus on work that you enjoy, surround yourself by smart and decent people, and find ways to differentiate yourself in your field.

Ted Zangari

Chair, Real Estate Law Dept. & Chair, Redevelopment Law Practice Group
Sills Cummis & Gross PC

What is your proudest professional achievement?

Establishing the first end-to-end Redevelopment Law practice group in the state at the dawn of the “smart growth” era around 2000. We sensed that the future of land development in older, more built-out states like New Jersey was RE-development and that such projects would require a much broader range of legal specialties than those on greenfields. Today, this inter-disciplinary practice group spans over two dozen attorneys and maintains its own law blog, www.redevelopnj.com.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

The continuing decline of the billable hour, which lawyer-novelist Scott Turow first declared in a prescient column in 2007—well before AI was ever imagined outside computer science labs. The law firms that survive and thrive will be those that embrace and creatively propose value-based and other alternative fee arrangements to their clients, and whose lawyers deliver strategic and specialized legal advice well-beyond the basics that are being answered more and more accurately by AI every day.

Michael Zogby

New Jersey managing partner, Trial & Global Disputes co-chair, BT MENA co-chair
Barnes & Thornburg LLP

What is your proudest professional achievement?

Building Barnes & Thornburg’s New Jersey and Philadelphia offices. We opened in Morristown in 2022; today it’s 40 attorneys and professionals, active in the state’s legal and civil justice communities, and recognized with a Products Liability & Mass Tort Group of the Year honor. I’m proudest that the growth was cultivated – the right people, the right fit – and we continue to expand, most recently with our nationally-ranked Insurance Recovery team. We built something that outlasts any one case.

What do you foresee as the most disruptive change in the legal industry in the coming year?

Generative AI, but not the headline version. Attorneys need to use it strategically. GC adoption has roughly doubled year over year. The real shift is from adoption to discipline. We help clients build AI and data-use policies and govern real security and regulatory risk, while courts race to catch up on filings, ethics and liability for AI outputs. The edge won’t go to whoever adopts AI first, but to whoever leverages it best in the courtroom and the boardroom. That is exactly what we do well.

2026 NJBIZ Law Power List Index:
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