Just entering his professional prime and already a partner at the renowned firm of Fox Rothschild, LLP, 39-year-old Robert Epstein is emerging as one of New Jersey's more skillful and effective young matrimonial lawyers. He has built his practice in no small part by developing his professional reputation in the legal community and, in part, by making good use of social media and blogging. Many judges and adversaries already call him "Bobby" - a sign of both affection and trust. Moreover, Epstein, a Long Island native, possesses a distinctive background for a divorce attorney: Before law school, he was an account executive at McCann Erickson, the global advertising agency, where he worked on the Coca-Cola and Burger King accounts, among others. Not surprisingly, he brings an energy, creativity and resourcefulness to his cases, and his rise at Fox Rothschild - with 750 lawyers one of the few national firms to maintain a successful family law practice - suggests that he'll be a fixture in its Roseland/Morristown office for years. Epstein says his father practiced law before becoming a professor at New York Law School, but the senior Epstein "never pushed me" toward the law. Early on, growing up in Old Bethpage, NY, Epstein describes himself as having a "follow-the-rules, never-do-the-wrong-thing mentality, almost to a fault." He went to Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK High School, and describes himself as "pretty straightlaced." He attended SUNY Binghamton, where he majored in marketing, with an eye towards advertising. After realizing that his heart was not in the advertising world, however, he enrolled at St. John's University School of Law. Following a judicial internship in the Bronx, NY Supreme Court, Epstein was a summer associate with the Roseland-based Grotta Glassman & Hoffman, a nationally recognized management side labor and employment law boutique. Within weeks of Epstein starting full time, the well-known firm was absorbed by Fox as it pursued a growth-by-acquisition strategy that pushed it into the top ranks of American law. Soon after, Epstein became interested in family law. The department had a need and before he knew it, he landed in the firm's 30-lawyer family law department, headed by David Rasner in Philadelphia and Eric Solotoff in Roseland/Morristown. Epstein learned almost everything he knows from Solotoff, a key mentor, and Laurence Cutler, Esq., a former partner with the firm. "You might say my lawyering style reflects their different approaches in many ways, but you certainly evolve as you practice into the lawyer you want to be known as to clients and in the legal community." Epstein volunteers as an early settlement panelist, and as a panel chair for the New Jersey Fee Arbitration Committee, each a sign of confidence from his colleagues. He is also an Associate Editor of the New Jersey Family Lawyer, the State's preeminent practice publication and was just selected to serve on the New Jersey State Bar Association's Family Law Executive Committee. Thanks in part to cultivating his own cases, developing his own distinctive reputation, and establishing his presence online and in the legal community, by all accounts Epstein is a lawyer on the rise. Away from the office Epstein and his wife Tamar are busy raising their three sons and puppy, and coaching "too many" sports teams. They live in Essex County.