For more than three decades Jeffrey Weinstein has been one of New Jersey’s most prominent and best-known divorce lawyers, an attentive advisor and a hands-on practitioner – even today, as he heads one of the largest matrimonial-law firms in the state. With a raconteur’s affability and excellent instincts for people, the 61-year-old Weinstein remains a driven and energetic professional (“there’s still a fire in my belly”) who enjoys client advocacy, including its artistic and competitive aspects. And peers say he’s something of a throwback, maintaining an old-fashioned loyalty to everyone in his life, including clients. “I’ve been very lucky both personally and professionally,” he says, adding, “Of course you make your luck in life.” The eldest of three sons of a liquor salesman, Weinstein grew up in Essex County. He endured a stutter as a child, a handicap that “never put me in fear that I was not going to succeed. I simply had to work my way through it.” And he did, which only added to a lifelong sense of purpose. He attended Syracuse, majoring in political science (“I knew I’d be a lawyer, even though my mother wanted me to become a rabbi”). On her first day of classes he met his wife Ronnie; they married his first year of law school. An early mentor: Criminal Court Judge Edward F. Broderick, Sr., for whom Weinstein clerked (The judge “taught me how to how to listen, how to learn from people. He was the most perceptive person I’d ever met.”). In a short time, the confident Weinstein (“I’ve always had a pretty healthy ego”) launched a practice in Essex County with three other lawyers – he the lone matrimonial lawyer. He chose the field because “it has that person-to-person contact that I wanted -- and needed.” His early cases mirrored the times – the state’s equitable-distribution statute had just been enacted, and his cases often broke new legal ground.