Banas, Mitchell

Mitchell Banas
Lawyer
Banas seeks board seat at Erie County Bar Association
by Glenn Graminga (Polonia Profile)
When Mitchell Banas was a teenager at North Tonawanda High School, he was a self-described "mouthy kid" who was an especially good talker. "As a result, my parents would turn to me and say, 'He'd make a good lawyer some day'," Banas recalls. "Eventually, I started to take that kind of talk seriously and became a lawyer, a profession I genuinely love and enjoy."
Currently, Banas is one of eight candidates running for four seats on the board of directors of PRC the Erie County Bar Association. He previously served as president of the Advocates Club, the local organization of Polish American legal professionals from 2000 to 2001.
"I was very happy that as president of the Advocates Club I was able to bring a new wave of younger lawyers into the organization," he said. "Now the club really seems to have been revitalized and I was honored to be able to play a part in that."
Since 1985, Banas has worked for the prestigious law firm of Jaeckle Fleischmann and Mugel as a courtroom litigator specializing in commercial cases.
"I deal mainly in business disputes, contract problems between commercial entities and that kind of thing," he said. "As a young lawyer I was involved in the Lancaster Dome Stadium case. I was also involved in defending some of the correction officers in connection with the law suits stemming from the Attica prison riots. Of all the cases I've handled, those two are the ones that the public would probably be most familiar with."
Though his father was from Black Rock, Mitchell Banas grew up in North Tonawanda where he attended local public schools including North Tonawanda High School.
He graduated from NT in 1978 as an honor roll student determined to have a career in the law. The young man went on to continue his education at SUNY Fredonia from which he graduated in 1982 as a psychology major.
After that it was on to UB Law School where he worked on honing his skills as a courtroom advocate.
"I'm very honored to be working for a firm like Jaeckle Fleischmann and Mugel which has offices in downtown Buffalo as well as in Amherst, Rochester, and Phoenix, Arizona."
Though he is a very busy person, what with his heavy work load at the law firm and his volunteer commitments, Banas always makes plenty of time to spend with his young family.
"I've been married to my wife, Roberta for 21 years and we have three children," he said. "We have our twins, Zachary and Sarah, who are both 14 and also Jackson who is 1O." Banas seems extremely happy with all aspects of his life, including his practice, his family, and of course, his precious Polish heritage.
"I'm very proud of being Polish," he said. "It's always been an important part of my life and that of my family and always will be."
Source: Am-Pol Eagle, May 25, 2006.