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Attorney Justin Heller has roots in Albany, NY, that reach back generations to around the turn of the 20th century. The Heller family history is intertwined with the history of the state capital and its legal community.
Heller is the current curator of that family history and as managing partner of Nolan Heller Kauffman LLP he is ensuring the continuation of the family’s legal legacy.
Heller’s grandfather, Julius Heller, was a longtime reporter for The Knickerbocker News, who for decades chronicled some of the city’s most significant events, including the killing of Jack “Legs” Diamond, a notorious gangster and bootlegger who was assassinated in 1931 in an Albany rooming house. After World War II, he traveled to Nijmegen, Netherlands, to report on a goodwill mission Albany organized to deliver tons of needed supplies and construction materials to help rebuild the war-torn city. The charitable effort resulted in Albany and Nijmegen becoming sister cities.
The trip also inspired Julius to suggest to Albany’s mayor at the time, Erastus Corning, that the city start an annual Tulip Festival in celebration of the city’s Dutch heritage and its relationship with Nijmegen. Albany’s first Tulip Festival was held in 1949 and now draws tens of thousands of visitors each year. Later in his career, Julius Heller covered the courts and knew all the significant lawyers and judges in town.
When Justin Heller started practicing law, he remembers occasionally running into older attorneys who were contemporaries of his grandfather. He laughs when he recalls a retired personal injury lawyer telling him, “Your grandfather could make a curb look two feet high,” referring to a side business Julius had as a photographer.
Heller’s father, Mark Heller, deepened the family’s connection to the legal community by joining it. A Harvard Law grad, he became a corporate lawyer and founded Nolan & Heller in 1964.
“One of their primary areas of work was in banking and to this day that is one of our core practice areas,” says Heller.
Today, the business law firm has built a reputation as one of the top law firms in Upstate New York’s Capital Region and represents companies, business owners, entrepreneurs, start-ups, real estate owners, developers, publicly traded companies, banks, and other financial institutions.
Heller joined the firm in 1990 after graduating from Albany Law School of Union University. His path to a legal career was not a direct one, though. He first thought he might enjoy working with animals in some capacity so he journeyed out to the Midwest to attend Ohio Wesleyan University because it had a strong zoology program.
He soon discovered, however, that he had a stronger interest in business than animals and after graduation he returned to Albany where he joined a management training program and worked in commercial banking for two years. He credits the experience with sparking his interest in law. He was able to interact with a range of people in the business community and observed the different roles people played. He particularly noted the essential role of the commercial lawyers.
“I liked the fact that lenders really needed and sought the input of the lawyers,” says Heller. “The lawyers were the problem-solvers. There was a quarterbacking quality to it that I liked.”
Once the inspiration to be a lawyer came to him, Heller says he couldn’t get out of banking and into law school fast enough.
There is an intellectual challenge to the career that appeals to him.
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