PASSING OF MICHAEL SUTIN

Michael Sutin, a noted New Mexico lawyer, died Sept. 7 of natural causes related to his battle with Alzheimer’s. He was 84. Michael was born in 1935 in Terre Haute, Ind., and moved in 1946 with his family to Albuquerque, where he later graduated from Highland High School. Throughout his teen years, he played baseball — he pitched right-handed, despite being a natural lefty — participated in thespian clubs, wrote poetry and worked as a sports stringer for the Albuquerque Journal. For a few years, he attended a prelaw program at University of Arizona, where he met his wife, Esther Sacherson. He then moved back to New Mexico to attend the University of New Mexico. He graduated from its law school in 1959. In 1986, Sutin and his wife moved to Santa Fe, where he worked for his father’s firm at its office here. He left the business in 2006 to pursue other interests, but he joined the Sommer Udall Law Firm two years later. Though Sutin dreamed of working at a remote lookout station for the U.S. Forest Service, those who knew him said he made remarkable impacts as a lawyer. Michael published three books of poetry — Voices from the Corner/Voces del Rincon; Naked Ladies on the Road; and Graven Images: Poems — and contributed to various literary organizations, including the New Mexico Book Association and Poetry Center of New Mexico, now known as New Mexico Literary Arts.