Area of Practice: Alternative Dispute Resolution
Bernard A. Kuttner, a New Jersey attorney whose legal career spanned more than 60 years.
During his career, he tried 72 Constitutional Law cases for César Chavez's United Farm Workers and also represented the NAACP among many other pro bono clients. In every pro bono case, he personally covered all fees amounting to tens of thousands of dollars in out-ofpocket expenses. In recognition of his service, the 3,500 member Essex County Bar Association called its annual Pro Bono Award the Bernard A. Kuttner Pro Bono Award.
Mr. Kuttner was born on Jan. 13, 1934 in Berlin, Germany to B. Frank Kuttner and Vera
(Knopfmacher) Kuttner. As Nazi edicts against Jews grew ever harsher, Frank Kuttner like most
Germans of the Jewish faith lost his job. He had been employed at a large department store in Berlin. In December of 1938, one month after Kriställnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) during which Jewish houses of worship and Jewish shops were destroyed, the Kuttner family fled in a fishing boat to Rotterdam, Holland, where they stayed for a few days before boarding a ship headed for Ellis Island, New York. On January 18, 1939, a few days after Bernard Kuttnerts fifth birthday, they arrived in New York City.
For a while, they lived in the Bronx with Frank Kuttner's older brother, Fred. Then the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri. There Bernard Kuttner, who spoke no English when he arrived in the United States, attended grammar school. Finally, the Kuttner family moved back East and settled in Irvington, New Jersey, where Bernard went to high school and was honored as "outstanding citizen of the year."
Mr. Kuttner's long and distinguished career as an attorney Included arguing three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Among his many other accolades and achievements, he was elected president of the Essex County Bar Association. He wrote a Code of Ethics for Governmental Officials that was adopted by more than 200 communities in the United States. He served as Judge of the State Division of Tax Appeals.
He said that he chose law as a career because he wanted to help people. In high school, he was asked to be on radio programs where he talked about Civil Rights issues. Even then, they were on his mind.
When it came time for college, he applied to Dartmouth and was accepted with a full scholarship. Never having been there, he set off in August 1951 for Hanover, New Hampshire where he spent four happy years. In 1955, he graduated cum laude with a major in philosophy. Then it was off to law school.
At first he went to the University of Virginia Law School as a Bayley-Tiffany Scholar but had to leave after a year when he ran out of money. He transferred to the Seton Hall Law School in downtown Newark, New Jersey. Because he had to work during the day, he attended law school at night. This schedule meant that it took him four years to get his law degree.
While in law school he worked for the Superior Court Judges in Essex County doing presentence investigation reports. This entailed visiting the homes of people convicted of a crime to observe the home environment and to analyze what might have caused or contributed to the conviction. Mr. Kuttner was also responsible for evaluating a prisoner's prospects for rehabilitation.
As it turned out, these insights weren't wasted on him. Much of his legal career was dedicated in one way or another to helping people who had had to deal with circumstances that were often harsh and unfair.
Immediately after graduating from law school, Mr. Kuttner served his clerkship with McGlynn, Weintraub and Stein, the firm of Chief Justice Joseph Weintraub who headed the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1957 to 1973.
Around the same time, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, where he served part time for 12 years as a Lieutenant Commander. He did it, he said, because "1 wanted to give back to the country that had taken me and my parents in."
After finishing his clerkship, Mr. Kuttner joined the firm of Toner, Crowly, Woelper & Vanderbilt, one of the largest law firms in New Jersey. It had been founded by Arthur T. Vanderbilt who was the Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1948 to 1957. Mr. Kuttner remained there for eight years, defending major pharmaceutical companies and large corporations against people who had been injured.
The law firm was prestigious. but Mr. Kuttner decided to go into solo practice so he could help those in need.
In the spring of 1965, Mr. Kuttner had participated in the five-day, 54-mite-long march led by Dr. Martin Luther King from Selma, Alabama to the state capital in Montgomery to fight for voting rights. "One memory of that trip is that the dogs were ferocious," Mr. Kuttner said. "They were letting them loose to scare us. They would rear up and snarl as we marched along."
Mr. Kuttner became a life member of the NAACP.
Subsequently, the head of the NAACP in New Jersey heard about him and enlisted his help. A few miles from where Mr. Kuttner worked, the ultra-conservative John Birch Society had taken over the Roselle school board, which was banning books from the library such as J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" and John Kenneth Galbraith's "The Affluent Society." The NAACP objected. The case of State v Brown went to the New Jersey Supreme Court where Mr. Kuttner prevailed. With this victory, children who were predominantly black continued to have access to worthwhile books that the ultra conservatives had sought to ban.
But the cases on which he worked of which he was most proud had to do with the United Farm Workers. Although they were based in LaPaz, California, there were many members of the Union in New Jersey. "New Jersey and New York had become the real battleground," Mr. Kuttner said. "They arrested more than 70 individuals for picketing peacefully and exercising their constitutional rights of free speech and assembly. There were people, young and old, working on the farms in the heat, not getting anything near a living wage, with no food, no water. I was trying to get them decent living wages and better treatment. Over the years, it was quite a struggle. Now they're in better shape."
Hearing of this work on behalf of 30,000 United Farm Workers, most of whom were Catholic, New York's Cardinal John O'Connor invited Mr. Kuttner and his wife, Marta, to have dinner at his home at St. Patrick's Cathedral and then arranged for the Kuttners to travel to Rome to visit Pope John Paul ll. "it was a very meaningful experience.," Mr. Kuttner said. "We talked with the
Pope for a good while." Then he added, "They made him a Saint."
