Richard Russell of Ocean City is one of the most respected and admired matrimonial attorneys in the state -- not only for his legal skills and acumen, but also for his record of integrity and professional contributions to the law. Indeed, the 57-year-old Russell, who moved to Ocean City when he was 12, today is a fixture of the South Jersey bar.

While pursuing a liberal arts degree at Rutgers, Russell says he realized then that the law would suit his strong sense of logic and empirical thinking. By 1973, law degree in hand, he clerked for Ocean City’s largest firm (all of five attorneys). “It was serendipitous,” Russell says, that divorce law, with the recent passage of modern statutes, was exploding, and the field was attracting bright young lawyers. “I am a great observer of the human condition, and I analyze the problems while addressing my clients’ concerns and fears.” Over the years Russell was a central figure in the matrimonial bar in the state, chairing key committees and, as an editor of New Jersey Family Lawyer, writing on important issues.

In 1996 Russell launched his own practice, and his stature as a trial lawyer has only grown. And, to the envy of his peers, his office today is located a half-block from the Ocean City boardwalk (“When I’m stressed I can walk to the ocean, my favorite place.”) and only two minutes from his year-round home. Something of an Anglophile, Russell and his wife travel every year to the British Isles, but “our social life still revolves around our children”. They have a 26-year-old son, a high school English teacher in Bergen County, and a 23-year-old daughter, who recently graduated from Berkelee College of Music and works in the recording industry in Philadelphia.

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