Thomas Prol, with Sills, Cummis & Gross in Newark.

On Monday Thomas Prol wore a crisp, dark blue Calvin Klein suit and a light blue tie over a white shirt as the newest face at Sills, Cummis & Gross in Newark.

Managing partner R. Max Crane was impressed by Prol’s appearance and demeanor. The suit in many ways was a metaphor for Prol. He, too, is a perfect fit for Sills Cummis, according to Crane.

“If the rest of his tenure here is as good as today, we are good to go,” said Crane during a conference call with the Law Journal with Prol seated next to him in the Newark office Monday.

Prol joined as a partner in the environmental and land use practices. That’s been his main practice area throughout his career, but he’s most widely known for professional and social activism, including his Bar presidency. Fifteen years ago, Prol co-founded Garden State Equality and remains on its executive committee. The nonprofit organization has helped get 213 laws passed statewide to benefit the LGBT community, including marriage equality and an anti-bullying bill of rights, Prol said. Now he is more involved with the American Bar Association as a state delegate for New Jersey.

“This opportunity gives me a larger platform, both statewide and nationally for community service and issues impacting the business community,” Prol said. “I came from a great firm but the opportunity at Sills is incredible.”

Prol worked at Laddey, Clark & Ryan in Sparta for six years as a partner. He left that firm on Aug. 2 and started at Sills on Monday.

R. Max Crane, with Sills, Cummis & Gross.

Crane describes Sills Cummis as an institution that honors tradition while also keen on change, and “a nexus of government, public policy, law and business.” Among the firm’s other high-profile attorneys include former Supreme Court Justice Peter G. Verniero; Victor Herlinsky Jr., current finance director for Cory Booker’s Democratic presidential campaign; and Jerry Zaro, former economic adviser to Govs. Jon Corzine and Chris Christie, and current chairman, appointed by Gov. Phil Murphy, of the Gateway Regional Transportation project.

Crane said Prol is tailor-made for the firm with his social activism: he ran in and won a contested State Bar election and became the first openly gay president of the association, is active among numerous LGBT groups and has written extensively on LGBT issues. There’s also his expertise as an environmental land use and real estate attorney.

In 2013 Prol emerged as an underdog who waged an aggressive campaign, both on social media and grassroots, to reclaim a seat on the state bar’s executive committee and eventually ascend to the presidency, which he served in 2016-17. (He had previously been on track for the presidency, chosen in 2012 to serve as secretary, but the Nominating Committee declined to renominate him as treasurer the next year, citing concerns over his residency. That led to the contested election.)

“I’ve watched Toms’s progression, especially his leadership of the state bar after an extended, contentious campaign in 2013,” Crane said. “He has been on my radar since. I was impressed in his running for office and winning. His visibility and success at the Bar Association, his tenacity and his reputation as a very smart, decent lawyer, made him a natural fit for us, and we had some very positive conversations.

“This is just a high-quality, smart, decent lawyer,” Crane said. “His part at the state bar association and part in the real estate community come just as extra toppings, additional positives.”

Prol, a 2001 New York Law School grad who turned 50 this year, said it was a quid pro quo for him since Sills Cummis gives him a bigger platform, both statewide and nationally, to achieve social goals.

Crane said Prol fits the prototype of a Sills Cummis hire.

“He does administrative law. He is a good litigator. He has a very broad background, and you get a better lawyer at the end of the day,” Crane said.

“Our whole founding, our DNA, is about having individuals who understand the importance of the business community to the state and making a living. But you can’t separate business from government, public policy and law,” Crane said.  “Tom fits seamlessly in with that line of lawyers who do it all, who understand government, public policy and business are linked.”

There was also the changing social dynamic.

“The world has changed very quickly and is still changing,” Crane said. “It was not the norm when Tom ran as an openly gay attorney to head the bar association in 2013.

“It’s crystal clear that corporate boardrooms and the business world, developers, the whole universe of business, have always been populated by the LGBT community,” Crane said. “Now it’s less judgmental and less of a mark, and almost business as usual. Tom has the contacts and resources that bring those clients to us to make things work for the client.

“With an ever-expanding LGBT population in the business world and corporate world, it’s really going to result in ’the sky’s the limit’ with Tom coming on board,” Crane said. “We understand you get better results, inputs and products with diversity. It’s a win-win.

“What got me excited is that Tom’s expanding his universe of connections and making it grow, hoping for better moral results and generating business,” Crane said.

Prol agreed. He said those principles, and Sills’ reputation as welcoming and inclusive, is what drew him to make the change.

“It ties in with my goal of bending the moral arc of the universe toward justice,” Prol said. “Sills Cummis is expanding and supporting my platform, and in that sense, the sky is the limit.”

Prol said he had a “very amicable departure” from Laddey Clark. The firm’s managing partner, Thomas Ryan, didn’t immediately comment on Prol’s move.