On May 1, 1966, just before graduation from the Columbus School of Law, Michael P. Ambrosio ’66 attended a communion breakfast that would start him on his professional path. “The speaker was the first director of The Office of Economic Opportunity’s Legal Services Program who described the new national program to provide legal services to the poor.” Led by his Catholic faith and interest in poverty law, Ambrosio applied for and received a position in New Jersey with the Newark-Essex Legal Services Project. Since then, Ambrosio has spent his career pursuing his interests in poverty law, the subject of law and morality, and the moral dimension of law study and legal practice. As a 2021 recipient of the William Callyhan Robinson Alumni Award, Ambrosio reflected on his years as an academic and practicing lawyer.

Ambrosio grew up in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, a small town just ten miles from New York City. Following his public-school education, he attended Montclair State College and then set his sights on law school. Having decided he wanted to attend a Catholic institution, Ambrosio explored both Catholic Law and Georgetown as options. “I visited both schools and talked to several students. The Georgetown students were not as happy as the CU students with their law school choice. I liked that CU was a small school in the nation’s capital.”

Ambrosio’s decision to attend Catholic Law proved to be the right one, and he quickly found himself at home amongst his peers. Ambrosio looks back on his time in law school fondly. “I really enjoyed studying in the stacks of the campus library and then later spending time singing songs with the girls from Trinity at the local pub. I remember moot court arguments and the sense of accomplishment they brought. I remember going to mass at the Cathedral and every day reading and meditating on the biblical inscription on one of the north porticos, ‘Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Set You Free.’” The expert faculty Ambrosio met at Catholic Law also had a major impact on him. “Virtually all the professors I encountered had an impact on me. There was Professor Arthur John Keefe, who taught Constitutional Law, and Dean Vernon Miller who taught torts. Both Father Broderick and Father Granfield provided a broad perspective about the nature and function of law.”

Ambrosio attributes his early career development to good fortune and opportunity. “I was blessed with good fortune and many people who believed in me. I had a lot of confidence in my ability and took full advantage of the opportunities presented.” After three years working with Newark-Essex Legal Services, Ambrosio received an invitation to apply for a teaching position at Seton Hall Law. “Before I decided to go to law school, I planned on getting a Ph.D. in History and teaching in college, so I was very happy to teach at the law school.” In his early years at Seton Hall, Ambrosio taught courses including Introduction to Law, Equity, Contracts, and Trial Practice. He also helped to establish a law school clinic that partnered with Newark-Essex Legal Services to allow students to gain hands-on experience while helping those in need with cases involving consumer contracts, landlord and tenant issues, family law, and juvenile cases. “As the director of the Clinic, I received two grants from the Ford Foundation’s Counsel on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility to fund and expand Seton Hall Law’s clinical program.”

Throughout his tenure, Ambrosio has helped design practical skills training and build upon materials for teaching Professional Ethics and Lawyering Skills. In 1976-77, while a visiting professor at Southwestern University Law School in Los Angeles, California, he helped to develop the school’s Conceptual Approach to Legal Education (SCALE) program — a two-calendar year program that emphasized legal concepts and practical skills training. When Ambrosio returned to Seton Hall, he taught Professional Responsibility and Jurisprudence, and throughout the 1990s was involved with their summer program in Italy. Ambrosio acted as the summer program’s director and taught a course on the History of the Western Idea of Law. All the while, Ambrosio has also been active in N.J. Bar and N.J. Supreme Court Professional Responsibility Committees. “Over the last 40 years, I have focused on teaching law and morality, and professional ethics. I have appeared in more than 400 cases as a lawyer, legal expert, or ethical consultant to lawyers and law firms in motions for disqualification, disciplinary matters, and legal malpractice cases.”

Ambrosio’s expansive and successful career has come with both rewards as well as challenges. “The most rewarding parts of my job were pursuing justice for poor people and seeing law students grow intellectually and professionally. The biggest challenges are/ were balancing the demands of teaching and scholarship with the practice of law.” Of course, maintaining a sense of balance in his career and personal life has also been important for Ambrosio. A good night’s sleep chief among the way he recharges, Ambrosio also makes time for leisure, his faith, and important relationships like those with his wife and two cats. “I enjoy reading the NY Times, watching sports, news, and movies on TV. I always have interesting books to read including the Bible. I spend time with my beautiful wife and with good friends and I play golf a few times a week.”

When asked if he had any advice to share with law students and young lawyers today, Ambrosio cited the importance of good work habits. “Take responsibility for your education by reading broadly about the foundations of law. I recommend reading John Finnis’ Natural Law and Natural Rights, in which Finnis explores the relationship of legal, political, and moral theory and sets forth a restatement of the Aristotle-Thomistic classical statement of natural law. I also recommend reading the Bible every day — there are daily reading plans that enable reading the entire bible with 20-minute daily readings.” He concluded, “I think success comes from attention to the development of good habits, analytical skills, the capacity for hard work, the ability to learn from and work well with others, using one’s abilities in the service of others, and the pursuit of intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth.”