Howard Nolan and Mark Heller were boyhood friends. Each became lawyers, Howard having graduated from Holy Cross and Albany Law School and Mark from Hamilton College and Harvard Law School. In 1964 they formed the partnership Nolan & Heller with its primary practice being commercial law and litigation, with an emphasis on creditors’ rights.
Nolan became a New York Senator in 1974. In 1977, he ran for Albany mayor unsuccessfully against longtime incumbent Erastus Corning. On Corning’s death in 1983, Cooper Erving partner Tom Whalen became mayor. In 1986, when a bank merger was to take place between clients of each firm, a merger of the two law firms was proposed. As a result, in January 1987 the firm became Cooper, Erving, Savage, Whalen, Nolan and Heller. When Whalen left in 1987 to devote his full time to being mayor, the firm became Cooper, Erving, Savage, Nolan & Heller.
In the late 1990’s both Nolan and Heller retired. In 2002, upon the departure of certain former Nolan & Heller partners, the firm resumed the name Cooper Erving & Savage.
