By Kathleen Hopkins
Asbury Park Press, July 6, 2003

To Linda Piff, happiness is being viewed as a professional, commanding respect and having the opportunity to give back to the community.

That didn't come easy to Piff, a Wall attorney. But that, she says, is the American way.

Although the fabric of American society has evolved into a patchwork of diversity and complexity never envisioned by the Founding Fathers when they drafted the Declaration of Independence 227 years ago, their concept of every man's inalienable right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is as relevant today as it was in the 13 Colonies, says Piff and other attorney in the Jersey Shore area.

"I continue to marvel at the wisdom of our Founding Fathers who drafted the Declaration of Independence," Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas F. Kelaher said. "They demonstrated a deep understanding of the human spirit and that spirit is as real today as it was over 200 years ago."

To Piff, who is president of Women Lawyers of Monmouth county, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are words to live by.

To her, they mean that "every goal is achievable," she said.

"Our county was based on a work eithic," she said. "If we had goals and worked at them, then we could achieve them and rise above the lower base of the economic system."

Piff embraced the concepts championed by the Founding Fathers.

"I came from an extremely poor family," Piff says recalling her childood in Laurence Harbor. "I went to college for the first time when I was 30 years old."

Piff worked as a legal secretary in the daytime, attended Ocean County College at night, transferred to Monmouth University and earned a bachlor's degree in five years, she said. Then she attended Rugers University Law School in Camden full time while working on the weekends, earning a law degree in three years.

Piff now heads a staff of 10 in a practice specializing in matrimonial law. In addition to commanding respect and maintaining integrity in her work, she said she enjoys the ability to give back to the community by donating to scholarship funds.

"I came from absolutely nothing," she says. "I have a lot today."

Her story is not unlike the settlers, she said, who were seeking the freedom to pursue their dreams free from the tyranny of Great Britain.

But, although the colonists' view of happiness may simply have been farming their land and raising their children free of disease, "we've become much more materialistic in our pursuit of happiness - the big home, the Mercedes."

And, she said, the Founding Fathers never envisioned women grabbing at the brass ring.

"Women were not envisioned in our court system," she said. "I used to do personal injury work, and there would be two women and 100 men (attorneys) on the calendar call. And you had to look like a man in a pinstripe suit."

Now, she says, women have begun to dominate law-school graduating classes.

"When they said 'All men were created equal,' they meant, all white men were created equal," Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye said of the Founding Fathers. "They means men, and they didn't mean women."

The pursuit of hapiness in colonial times "had more to do with the concept of religious freedom and the freedom from government oppression," Kaye said.

"In America today, the pursuit of happiness could be the right to use marijuana without getting arrested, or a gay marriage - things that were not in the consciousness of the people who signed on to the Declaration of Independence."

And, he said it has a more materialistic meaning today.

"Maybe it's winning the lottery or early retirement," he said.

The pursuit of happiness means different things to diffrent people, but the one commonality over the centuries is, "that we're people getting up and going to work so we can achieve some of the things that will make us happy," Kaye said.

George Koukos, president of the Ocean County Bar Association, said of the declaration's 56 signers, 24 of them were lawyers. Many of them were persecuted for signing the doucment, he said.

"The concept that all emn were created equal was revolutionary for its time," Koukos said.

"The pursuit of happiness meant being able to live yourlife in a free way, being productive members of society without being under the control of government," Koukos said.

"The same issues that were relevant to our forefathers are relevant to us," he said. "The Founding Fathers had the foresight to know future generations to come would want to be protected from government - It (the Declaration of Independence) is more relevant now because there are much more government intrusions today."