No. 2: Chris Porrino

After rising to political prominence in the administration of Republican Gov. Chris Christie, Porrino returned to private practice as chairman of the Litigation Department at Roseland’s Lowenstein Sandler, his old firm. Perhaps not surprisingly, Porrino’s efforts to build the practice involves connections to state government, including with Christie’s successor, Democrat Phil Murphy.

His ability to work across political affiliations has made him “the man to see” in New Jersey for a wide range of issues and sticky situations. “Three years after leaving his post as N.J.’s top cop, Porrino has risen like a phoenix as the essential go-to lawyer for the biggest and most important cases in New Jersey,” said one political insider, pointing to Porrino’s service as attorney general, chief counsel and director of the Division of Law Director for Christie. At Lowenstein, “he was engaged almost immediately to assist the Democratic Murphy Administration in its most difficult challenges, and continues in that role today. Perhaps not surprisingly, he has built a deep bench at Lowenstein via connections to state and federal government on both sides of the aisle, including through ties he formed with Christie’s successor by recently hiring former Murphy Chief Counsel Matt Platkin,” the insider notes.

“On the public interest side, Porrino is leaning in hard to the national policing crisis,” this person added. “He re-launched the Newark Police Foundation as chair, and announced a youth-focused community policy contest aimed at improving trust between Newark residents and the police.”

Porrino recently told NJBIZ about the foundation and why he hoped businesses would make investments in the community beyond culture and the arts. “Look we’re not discouraging any of that,” he said. “That’s great. We want all that to continue. We’re just looking for a little bite of that sandwich and just a little bit of help. This kind of an effort can have tremendous impact, but really is not all that expensive — it’s high-impact relatively low-expense.”