The LuLac Edition #4,179, December 3rd, 2019

ATTORNEY ROBERT MUNLEY 

(Photo: Times Tribune)

Attorney Robert Munley died on Saturday afternoon November 30th. He was 89. Munley was a storied and respected Attorney in Lackawanna County. I first became aware of him when I was in high school. At St. John the Evangelist in Pittston, there was a contingent of young men who were at the time the ultimate political nerds. One of the things we did when we weren’t getting turned down by the popular girls was to collect campaign signs and palm cards. We scoured both Lackawanna and Luzerne County since our freshman year.
It was 1969, the year Gene Peters was squaring off against the incumbent Mayor James Walsh. At that time in The Lu, the yard signs were pretty pedestrian. But in The Lac, oh my heavens they were big, bold and had incredible fonts. On a Saturday we journeyed up to the campaign headquarters in Scranton and procured a Peters sign, a very huge Jim Walsh sign, and a Chester Lasota placard. We needed a Bob Munley sign(he was running against Mazzoni for DA)  but by that time the last afternoon bus was heading out of Scranton and we had to get back to Pittston. We followed the DA’s race between Munley and Paul Mazzoni and were actually rooting for Munley, sans sign because hey, despite those fancy Peters and Mazzoni blue colors and fancy fonts, we were after all Democrats. Attorney Munley lost but as chronicled in the newspaper Monday, he went on to bigger and better things. To some, having worked hard for an election, you’d think he might have succumbed to the political bug. But having had two parents who were in political warfare, Munley found that building a practice and utilizing it for the public good was all the ego he needed.
Lawyers come in all categories. The bombastic ones who make a lot of noise and produce little results. New Orleans DA Jim Garrison comes to mind. The climbers who use a one shingle office to build a political power base for themselves. The nose to the grindstone attorneys that want to out bill their peers. The ones who won’t return phone calls and the ones who don’t think you’re case is worth the work. Then there are the ones like Robert Munley who love the law. Being a lawyer is not just a job but a vocation. A calling. Munley, when he was building his firm recognized that he was creating a tree in which the legal branches he hired could be nurtured and would survive him. The people who became lawyers in his firm did so because they had to be inspired by his regard for ethics and the law itself. Those lawyers, those who hold the rule of law and its practice not only in their minds but in their hearts inspire others. Robert Munley did so.
I only met him very briefly on the streets of Scranton in the 1990s as the late Jim McNulty and I were walking near the Federal Courthouse. I never brought up those days of confiscating campaign signs with the fancy fonts. My uncle who had won and lost elections told me never to bring up a race that someone had lost and beside who the hell collected out of town signs. But then and today as the area mourns his loss, I’m sure glad I was rooting for him back then.
Our condolences to his family and friends. He was a legal giant who moved quietly with dignity.
He will be remembered fondly.