Ray practiced business, corporate and commercial law from 1982 through his retirement in 2023. He litigated myriad cases involving the State of New Jersey and its various agencies, including the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency and the Department of Community Affairs.
A major portion of his practice revolved around shareholder, partner, and limited liability company disputes.
For example, recent matters involved the partition of a 600-unit housing complex in West New York, disputed ownership of Hackensack apartment buildings worth in excess of $160 million dollars, and a family struggle among shareholders of a conglomerate of companies operating various truck stops, multi-family housing and oil delivery businesses.
Ray brought and defended collection cases on behalf of both plaintiff creditors and defendant debtors including Fortune 500’s.
Transactional work was another facet of Ray’s practice with expertise in multi-family building acquisition and refinancing. In the last five years alone, he represented clients in closing nearly $1 billion in loans with HUD and other lenders.
His other areas of practice over the years included environmental law, employment law, including enforcement and defense of restrictive employment covenants and negotiation of employee severance agreements, the purchase and sale of businesses, attorney ethics matters, land use applications, and family business disputes.
Ray is a 1982 graduate of the Rutgers School of Law. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from St. Peter’s University, having graduated in 1974 as the only student to ever amass sufficient credits to graduate within two years of completing high school.
As a young man he traveled about Europe, working on an archaeology dig in Wales, and with the British Conservation Corp., and National Trust on various conservation projects in and about East Anglia.
Upon returning to the United States, Ray, an avid reader, worked for five years as an assistant librarian at a local university before attending law school.
From 1992 through 2019, Ray was a member of the Ho-Ho-Kus Zoning Board of Adjustment, serving as Chairman from 2006 through his 2019 retirement from the Board. He has sat on the boards of various community arts groups, including the Pro Arte Chorale and the New Jersey Poetry Society.
A serious tennis player and an oft published poet, Ray lives with his wife and their dog, Zoe, in Delaware.