Herman D. Michels

A service for Judge Herman D. Michels, a township resident, will be held on Saturday, Jan. 8 at 11 a.m. at Christ Church, 66 Highland Ave., Short Hills.

Judge Michels, 83, died on Dec. 31.

A native of Weehawken and a 1945 graduate of Teaneck High School, he joined the United States Navy. He completed basic training at Camp Perry in Williamsburg, Va., and was assigned to the admiral's staff aboard the heavy cruiser U.S.S. Fall River based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Judge Michels graduated from Muhlenberg College in 1950 and from Rutgers Law School in 1953. While attending Rutgers Law School, he was a member of the Rutgers Law Review and was awarded the Milton M. Unger Memorial Award and the Municipal Corporation Law Prize.

Judge Michels was admitted to the practice of law in New Jersey as an attorney in 1953 and as counselor-at-law in 1955. He was also admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (1953), the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1956) and the United States Supreme Court in 1956.

He practiced law as an associate and then as a partner in the law firm of Toner, Crowley, Wolper & Vanderbilt and later Toner, Vanderbilt, Michels & Light in Newark. Thereafter, he practiced as senior partner in the law firm of Michels & Schwartz in Newark.

He was appointed to the Superior Court of New Jersey in 1972, by Gov. William G. Cahill and was assigned to the Law Division, Superior Court, in Newark. He was then assigned to the Appellate Division in 1974. He was appointed as presiding judge of the Appellate Division in Sept. 8, 1980, and then as the presiding judge for Administration of the Appellate Division in 1985.

Judge Michels was a member of the Essex County, New Jersey and American bar associations, the American Judicature Society, the Maritime Law Association of the United States, and was a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He was a former president and member of the Executive Committee of the Council of Chief Judges of State Courts of Appeal. He served as chairman of the Public Access Subcommittee of the New Jersey Judiciary Information Systems Policy Committee (1996), the New Jersey Ethics Commission (Michels Commission) (1993), the Supreme Court Committee on Court Reporting (1991) and the New Jersey Supreme Court Judiciary Drug Abuse Study Group (1987).

Judge Michels was currently counsel to the Gibbons law firm in Newark, working with the firm's Appellate and Alternative Dispute Resolution practice groups. He served as an arbitrator, mediator and special discovery master, and served as an arbitrator and/or mediator in over 400 cases in the past 13 years. These included construction, contract, commercial insurance, reinsurance, employment, legal and medical malpractice, personal injury, corporate and partnership dissolutions and environment damage cases.

Judge Michels was a vestryman and junior and senior warden at Christ Church. He was a member of the Short Hills Club, where he served on the Board of Governors and as vice president and general counsel.

He is survived by his wife, Ann; three daughters, Sarah of New York City, Martha Levy of Las Vegas, Nev., and Linda Carchia of the township; two sons, Stephen of Kirkland, Wash., and Christian of Voorhees; a brother, David of New Milford; and 10 grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Overlook Hospital Foundation, 36 Upper Overlook Road, P.O. Box 220, Summit, N.J. 07902, or Christ Church, 66 Highland Ave., Short Hills, N.J. 07078. For further information or to send the family a message of condolence, visit www.bradleyfuneralhomes.com.