They want less confrontation between the suburbs and the city, because there's a feeling that the city is dying, and they're fleeing. Michael Battle '77, the assistant New York State attorney general in charge of the Buffalo regional office, was rummaging through a file cabinet containing notes on his civic and community work. The drawer was packed with information on such organizations as the United Way, the Theater of Youth, the Cerebral Palsy Association, the Crisis Center, the Erie County Bar Association, and the Minority Bar Association-all of which Battle has served as a member of the board of directors at some point during the 10 years he has been in Buffalo. Michael Battle seems almost too good to be true. As a lawyer, he has distinguished himself both defending clients and prosecuting criminals.
Battle is a big man, well dressed and solidly built.
He was at home in his office above Buffalo's Delaware Circle, and despite the constant bustle in the outer office, the ongoing interruptions at the door or on the phone, he was relaxed and comfortable speaking about his life and values. At the center of those values, he said, has been a belief in the importance of the legal system. His love for the law came early in his undergraduate career at Ithaca. During his freshman year he formed a friendship with a fellow student whose husband was a Cornell law student named Robert Johnson. One day Johnson asked him if he had ever considered the legal profession.