The Most Dangerous Man
in the Courtroom
BY G. PATRICK PAWLING
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUIGI CIUFFETELLI
Just try and pull a fast one on Paul Rowe—
chances are he’s already seen it
PAUL A. ROWE, CHAIRMAN OF
Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis in
Woodbridge, has been practicing law since
1962, the year John F. Kennedy wrestled
the Cuban missile crisis to a frightening but
successful end. As Rowe entered practice,
John Glenn orbited the Earth, Johnny Carson
took over
The Tonight Show
and people
bought gasoline for 26 cents a gallon.
Lithe, thin and so full of energy he seems
to have to wrap his arms around himself
to keep from jiggling even while sitting,
Rowe says he hasn’t rested a bit. Fellow
attorneys agree.
“I’ve known Paul for the better part
of four decades, and I haven’t seen any
indication that he is interested in slowing
down or has in any way grown tired of
what he is doing—he is still stimulated by
his work,” says David Samson, a Wolff &
Samson founding member and New Jersey
attorney general from 2002 to 2003. “We
have had cases against each other and
cases where we worked together. There is
nobody I have met since I have been in the
practice of law who is any better at what he
does. He hasn’t lost a step.”
For the record, practicing for 50 years
isn’t unheard of. But it’s arguable that
few attorneys have worked at such a
high and diverse level for so long. Rowe
seems to be having as much or more fun
than ever. That makes him a dangerous
man in the courtroom.
document written in English in his father’s
trunk,” Rowe says. “Suspecting what it
was, he showed it to my mother who read
English, and she recognized it immediately
as citizenship papers. Unbeknownst to
anyone, my grandfather had become a
United States citizen.”
The next day, Rowe’s mother went to
the U.S. Embassy, and officials confirmed
her suspicions: that the papers confirmed
Rowe’s father was a United States citizen,
too. The Rowes were lucky. “Jews in
Hungary knew what was coming,” Rowe
says. “There was no country that would
take them, and it was impossible to obtain
a visa—especially to the United States.”
With this knowledge—and seeing the
steady advance of the Nazi Party and
feeling the rising tide of anti-Semitism—
Rowe’s father left Hungary for America to
find a job and a safer place for his family
to live. Months later, Rowe, his brother
and their mother boarded the
Bremen
. But
when they were still days out of New York,
Nazi high command ordered all German
shipping to return to their home ports in
preparation for the invasion of Poland.
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