Officers and Trustees

Bergen County Bar Association 121st President Andrew J. Cevasco, Esq.

Andy Cevasco has been privileged to be associated with the Bergen County Legal Community for over 40 years.  Michael (Jerry) Breslin hired him as a law clerk at Breslin, Herten, & LePore in January of 1978 and that’s when the fun began.  Clerking and later working as an associate at Breslin Herten & LePore, Andy learned the ins and outs of the general practice of law at a small to mid-sized firm.  He concentrated in the areas of Litigation, Estates and Trusts, Business Law, and Municipal law.  It was during his time at that firm that he was first exposed to involvement in the Bergen County Bar Association, as Jerry Breslin had been one of its past presidents.   The mentoring and example of Jerry Breslin, Tom Herten and Jim LePore provided a strong foundation in respecting the practice of law as a profession and keeping public service as a priority.

After graduating from law school, Andy had the good fortune to serve as a Legal Secretary to the Honorable Robert L. Clifford, Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, a jurist renowned for his acumen and his wit.  Under Justice Clifford he learned that rigorous legal analysis must be tempered with a detailed and sensitive assessment of the facts to which the law is being applied.  He also learned that even at the highest level of legal proficiency, a lawyer can have some fun. After concluding a terrific year with Justice Clifford, Andy returned to Breslin, Herten & LePore as an associate attorney, and his real education in the law began.

After seven years at Breslin, Herten & LePore, Tom Herten, Al Burstein and Phil Sheridan offered Andy the opportunity to become a partner at Herten, Burstein, Sheridan, & Cevasco.  As the youngest of the partners, he was automatically selected to be the managing partner of the firm.  As the firm grew from five to over 30 lawyers, he learned the art of teamwork and the importance of a committed work ethic.  Those are qualities he will bring to his leadership of the Bergen County Bar Association.  For the past eight years he has been a shareholder at Archer and Greiner, P.C., a regional law firm, whose collegiality and legal expertise he greatly values.

Today, Andy’s practice consists of both litigation and transactional work.  He appears regularly in Superior Court, mostly in the Chancery Division, Probate Part, handling estate and trust litigation, probate matters, and guardianships.  He also prepares estate plans for his clients and administers estates.  Finally, he advises his corporate clients regarding a broad array of business legal issues, including shareholder relations, labor and employment issues, and business transactions.

In addition to these practice areas, Andy has been court-appointed many times to serve as counsel for alleged incapacitated persons in guardianship matters, as administrator of estates involved in litigation, and as a mediator.  He is a member of the Roster of Mediators and had also served for many years as an arbitration panelist in the Superior Court Civil Arbitration Program.

He is particularly proud of his service on the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Committee on Character; reviewing applications and conducting hearings for applicants to the New Jersey State Bar.  He has also served on the District to the Ethics Committee and has represented attorneys who face ethics charges at both the hearing level as well as before the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Andy has been a member of the Bergen County Bar Association since he began practicing law in 1980.  He has been a trustee and an officer of the Bar Association since 2005 and has served as co-chair of its Professional Committee and the Estate Planning and Probate Committee for many years.  He has lectured for NJICLE and NBI and other groups in the areas of estate litigation, wills and trusts, and professional ethics on numerous occasions.  His community involvement includes the founding and serving as the first President of the Rutherford Education Foundation, serving on the Board of Directors of the Catholic Youth Organization for the Archdiocese of Newark and Bergen County, as well as the Board of Directors of the Greater Bergen YMCA.  He is currently a member of the Cornerstone Committee at Immaculate Conception Seminary, Seton Hall University, and an active member and a former Community Director of The Community of God’s Love in Rutherford, New Jersey.  Andy is a proud alumnus of Fordham University, from which he graduated summa cum laude, as well as New York University School of Law.  Both schools have a long and proud tradition of public service.