Spring 2009 Loquitur—The Alumni Magazine for Vermont Law School

spring 2009

The Heat is On

Turning Planetary Crisis Into Global Opportunity

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Contents 3 Letter from Dean Jeff Shields 4 Discovery

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Our bar passage rate is up, Nina Thomas reflects on 33 years at VLS, students file an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, the ENRLC challenges EPA, and more.

The Heat Is On: Turning planetary crisis into global opportunity

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Find out how the Vermont Law School community has been taking on global climate change— influencing policy, education, and our individual actions.

Faculty Highlights International environmental leader Gus Speth will join the faculty next year, the Legal Writing Program gets a new home, and VLS remembers Michael Mello.

24 Pride in Practice:

One semester that changes lives

30 The value of experiential learning—hands-on, real-world training through externships and in-house legal clinics—is becoming recognized, and law students are graduating better prepared.

Jessica Werber ’07 in Washington, D.C.

Mig Dooley

The Semester in Practice program is celebrating 25 years. Hear from students, mentors, and the faculty who have shaped these critical experiencebased courses.

Class Notes News from your classmates, as well as profiles of Holly Groschner ’88, Cappy Nunlist ’90, and Jamar Brown ’05

Cover: © Digital Vision Photography

spring 2009

Loquitur Spring 2009 Volume 22, Number 2 President and Dean Jeff Shields Vice President for Institutional Advancement Dorothy Behlen Heinrichs Editor Carol Westberg Production Editor Jennie Clarke Contributing Editors Susan Davidson Jennifer Hayslett Contributing Writers Diane Derby Regina Kuehnemund Josh Larkin Patrick A. Parenteau Deborah Solomon Reid Special Thanks To Kim Harris Mary Lou Lorenz Design Glenn Suokko, Inc. Printing Capital Offset Company, Inc.

Send address changes to alumni@vermontlaw.edu or call 802-831-1313 Printed with soy-based inks on recycled paper Š 2009 Vermont Law School

John Douglas/Flying Squirrel Graphics

Published by Vermont Law School 164 Chelsea Street, PO Box 96 South Royalton, VT 05068 www.vermontlaw.edu

Letter from Dean Jeff Shields Dear alumni and friends, I want to encourage you to read the feature in this Loquitur on Vermont Law School’s Semester in Practice, one of the first and finest experiential programs in any law school.

While in college, I became aware of the power of experiential learning when I worked in Peru on a project funded by the Ford Foundation. I later worked for the Experiment in International Living and helped develop experiential programs. Yet later, while in practice, I developed a number of experiential programs at the high school and college level in the Chicago area.

When I came to Vermont Law School four and a half years ago, I was extremely pleased to find a very strong set of experiential programs already in place—including the Semester in Practice, Judicial Externships, the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic, and the South Royalton Legal Clinic. In addition, our awardwinning General Practice Program provided a sophisticated set of simulations that supplement the experiential programs as a learning tool outside of conventional doctrinal class work.

Taken as a whole, the experiential offerings at Vermont Law School are second to none. Many of these programs also open wonderful opportunities to develop relationships that lead to jobs and lifelong contacts.

Find out how you can become involved.

Best regards,

Geoffrey B. Shields President, Dean, and Professor of Law

Rose McNulty

Discovery

Eye-level on a bookshelf in Registrar Nina Thomas’s office sits a black-andwhite photo in an unadorned frame. It shows schoolchildren lined up in front of the South Royalton graded school that is now Debevoise Hall. Nina Lemery is in the front row; in the back row is Ron Thomas, the man she would marry nearly two decades later. The photo reinforces what many at Vermont Law School already know: Nina Thomas is as much of an institution on campus as the bell tower atop Debevoise Hall. As she prepares for retirement later this year, Thomas reflects on more than three decades of change since the early days of a scrappy upstart law school.

When she started at VLS in 1976 as a temporary employee assigned to work in the faculty office, faculty and staff shared space and duties. Job titles held little meaning, as everyone did whatever needed to be done. Her first VLS holiday party was a basement potluck. For entertainment, she brought her son’s “little red record player.”

On campus, she is known not only for her love of the Red Sox but for her sincere interest in VLS students—as evidenced by

Nina’s grade school photo. She is in the front row, second from the right. In 2005, a classroom in the renovated Debevoise Hall was named in Nina’s honor.

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John Douglas/Flying Squirrel Graphics

A Talking Heart: Nina Thomas Reflects on 33 Years at VLS

Nina Thomas at the 2008 Commencement Ceremony

the phenom of a “Nina hug.” The hugs are an integral part of law school life for many students who have crossed her threshold, particularly for 1Ls who experience the letdown of less-than-stellar grades. “I hug them and I cry with them,” she says from her ground-floor office in Abbott House, which is known to be well stocked with chocolates. “Law school can be a very difficult and traumatic experience for the students.”

Professor Bruce Duthu worked closely with Thomas when he was vice-dean of academic affairs from 2002 to 2005.

He says her “wise counsel, patience, and keen observations about the rhythms of the place” proved indispensable. “Nina’s star is particularly bright when it involves students,” adds Duthu, noting that during the spring “Re-Orientation” program, Thomas’s presentation invariably hit on three notes: tender mercies, tough love, and the reality check.

“She encouraged students not to let their grades define them. At the same time, she urged them to take stock of their

accomplishments and to reflect on their personal effort, discipline, and focus, and whether they had availed themselves of all the support provided on campus. Nina is a talking heart,” Duthu says. “Honest, direct, and remarkably hopeful.”

Thomas has faced the difficult task of advising some first-year students, in her words, “that this isn’t for you.” Those students often responded in tears, saying they had always dreamed of being a lawyer.

Thomas was ready with a direct response: “And I always wanted to be an Olympic figure skater.” In more than two decades as registrar, nothing proved as difficult as that tough love conversation, she says. And the best part of the job? The remarkable range of students she met over more than 30 years—“the diversity, the uniqueness, the individuality of the student body.”

Marilyn Labadie, who has worked as assistant registrar for eight years, notes that the name “Nina” means fire in Native South American Quechua. “And that she is,” Labadie says, using words such as “imaginative, compassionate, and intuitive” to describe Thomas. But, Labadie notes that Thomas can also be tough and stubborn when the time calls for it.

While Thomas is known to be at her desk long after most other offices have shut down, she has also made it be known that her family comes first. That was the case when she first interviewed in 1976 with Dean Thomas Debevoise. Her children, Rob and Colleen, were 6 and 3 years old.

“I said, ‘I have two small children. I have to work, but they are a critical part of my life,’” she recalls, noting how she told Debevoise that she would occasionally have to take time off during the day to attend school events, but she promised to make up any time she missed. “I left the interview and I thought, ‘I blew that one.

No one will hire me under those circumstances,’” she says. Debevoise proved her wrong, and VLS has long benefitted from that decision.

Discovery

Bar Passage Rates and Employment Stats on the Rise at VLS The Office of Career Services is pleased to report that our bar exam passage rate for the July 2008 exam was 85.2 percent, an 11.5 percent increase over 2007 and a 25 percent increase over 2006. In nearly every jurisdiction, the rate increased, and in the two most popular jurisdictions, New York and Vermont, the pass rate increased by over 10 percent.

The overall employment rate nine months after graduation for the class of 2008 was 91.8 percent working full- or part-time or in a degree program. Nearly 20 percent secured law-related rather than traditional legal positions, a result of the tight legal job market and our graduates’ continuing interest in jobs related to policy, science, or management. The breakdown was: 34 percent went to law firms, 31 percent to either government agencies or public interest/nonprofit organizations, and 15 percent to judicial clerkships.

In an effort to help students, recent grads, and alumni, last fall the career office hired Michele Kupersmith ’82 to serve as assistant director of Career Services and Sue Meyer Ross ’95 to serve as a part-time career services specialist working with recent graduates. Both have made an immediate and positive impact.

Alumni continue to be involved in every facet of the office, from interviewing on campus in the fall and spring to posting jobs all over the country to regularly talking with students who have questions about their careers. We are grateful to our alumni for all their help and encourage more of you to become involved. Call the Office for Institutional Advancement at 802-831-1325 or send an email to alumni@ vermontlaw.edu to find out more about how you can take part.

Professors Dejin Gu (far left) and Tseming Yang (center) with VLS students at Three Gorges Dam

China Partnership Continues High-Level Exchange VLS faculty members traveled to Beijing in December to participate in the inaugural conference of the China Society for Environmental Science (CSES) Environmental Law Branch, which was cosponsored

by VLS. The CSES Environmental Law Branch, affiliated with China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, is designed to provide support and create networking opportunities for younger environmental law scholars. Tseming Yang, director of the Partnership for Environmental Law in China, provided opening remarks and Cornell Library Director Carl Yirka gave a presentation on environmental law research.

This year five Vermont Law School students—Carolyn Alderman ’09, Shannon Cosentino-Roush ’09, Anna Skubikowski ’10, Ashley Laney ’09, and Thomas Baker ’09—have been working with partners at Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) on joint

research projects focusing on environmental law issues. In December, the students traveled to Guangzhou to meet with their project partners and give their presentations.

Earlier in the year, Professor Yang and eight VLS students, along with Professor Dejin Gu and law student Peipei Wang of SYSU, visited the Three Gorges Dam Project. An impressive site, the project is tightly guarded and requires visitors to pass through multiple security checkpoints manned by soldiers. The VLS visit took place during the wet season for the Yangtze River basin, so the river was very turbid and sediment-laden, and students noticed a significant amount of household trash in the stream. They will be preparing short documentary films about the dam for an environmental film festival that VLS anticipates holding later next year with Chinese students and scholars.

spring 2009

Discovery

A Day for Martin Luther King and Tomorrow’s Leaders On January 20, 2009, approximately 250 students, faculty, staff, community members, and visiting students from South Royalton High School gathered in the Chase Community Center to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and watch on a large screen as Barack Obama was sworn in as president of the United States.

Dean Jeff Shields said, “Today, we honor the extraordinary life of Martin Luther King Jr. with the celebration of a new president,” noting that today’s leaders “stand on the shoulders of the leaders of yesterday. Were it not for Martin Luther King Jr., Barack Obama would not be taking the oath today,” said Shields. He closed with a message to all the students that “The future stands on your shoulders.”

Muhammad El Gawhary ’09, representing the Black Law Students Association, sees the inauguration of the nation’s first African American president as a new beginning, “a rebirth of America.”

Gawhary is optimistic that Obama’s inauguration marks a change for the better, that the “American dream has been reawakened, and that the U.S. will now truly be seen in the world as a leader of the free.”

Keynote speaker, Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Diversity Shirley Jefferson ’86, experienced the civil rights movement firsthand. She remembers first being aware of racial discrimination as a young girl in Selma, Alabama, when her father explained that she couldn’t get an ice cream cone because the restaurant would not serve black people. Despite the obstacles, her father, Virgil Jefferson, remained optimistic, telling her, “If you work hard, people will help you, and they will give you an opportunity.”

Jefferson got her opportunity when she was admitted to VLS. She would not

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have been able to attend if Dean Tom Debevoise had not seen her potential and awarded her a scholarship. She particularly thanks Professor Gil Kujovich for challenging her to work hard and delve into difficult questions about race and justice.

Jefferson came to realize that, to succeed at law school, she would need to confront the negative feelings from her past.

Having struggled for civil rights and equality her entire life, Jefferson reveled in the celebration. “Today is special to me, but today is not about any one of us. It is for all of us, together.” Jefferson pointed out that the VLS community has long worked for the public good. “What’s happening in this country today is that we are making the country live up to the things that we said we were going to do. And we’re getting there.”

Recognizing that there is much work

Associate Dean Shirley Jefferson ’86 speaking at the MLK Day and Inauguration Celebration

for the new administration to do, Jefferson did not want to dwell on the problems ahead. She preferred to focus on all that has been accomplished since the injustices she witnessed as a young girl. “Don’t say anything negative to me today. Today is my day to celebrate!”

VLS Offers Four-Year JD Option In response to the challenging times, Vermont Law School is offering a four-year enrollment option for the JD program.

Applicants who need more flexibility can now take fewer credits per semester and graduate in four academic years instead of three. Students in this equally rigorous extended program take at least 10 credits per semester. Two Monday, Wednesday, and Friday schedules have been designed so that students are in class either 8:30– 12:35 or 11:00–3:30 each of the three days.

No courses have been scheduled during the summers, giving students the option of taking the summer off or enrolling in the joint JD/MELP program.

The deadline to submit the application

form for the four-year extended program is June 1. For this year only, applicants to the four-year program may take the June 8 LSAT. For more information, go to www. vermontlaw.edu/extended_jd or call the Admissions Office at 888-277-5985 or 802-831-1239.

Our alumni admissions volunteers are always a tremendous asset to the recruiting program. Admitted applicants appreciate the ability to email an alum to learn more about the law school. If you are not on our list and would like to communicate with admitted applicants, please send an email to Nancy Wight in the Admissions Office at nwight@vermontlaw.edu.

Discovery

A New Framework for Intergenerational Justice In February, the Climate Legacy Initiative (CLI) released a policy paper that examines the rights of future generations to a healthy environment and makes 16 recommendations for defining, establishing, and ensuring those rights. Recalibrating the Law of Humans with the Laws of Nature: Climate Change, Human Rights, and Intergenerational Justice—the product of consultation with interdisciplinary working groups, research from both VLS and The University of Iowa College of Law students, and the contributions of a Distinguished Advisor Panel—is being distributed to environmental organizations, law schools, nongovernmental organizations, and policy makers.

“This paper frames the ethical con-

struct of intergenerational justice and how the law could codify that,” says Professor Tracy Bach, associate director of the Climate Legacy Initiative, who coauthored the paper with CLI’s director, Professor Burns H. Weston. This approach to climate change examines the law of the U.S. and selected other countries, international law, and indigenous peoples’ law through a three-part framework established by Georgetown University Professor Edith Brown Weiss, a member of the Distinguished Advisor Panel. The framework asks if existing law conserves “options, quality, and access” for future generations.

The paper draws on collaborations with Distinguished Advisor panelists such as Brown Weiss; James Gustave Speth, dean

of Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies; Harriet Barlow, director of the HKH Foundation and the Blue Mountain Center; Jörg Chet Tremmel, founder and director of the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations, Germany; and Roger Kennedy, former director of the National Park Service and director emeritus of the National Museum of American History. Kennedy writes in the paper’s preface, “a paradigm shift in the way law and nature interact, which is at the heart of this policy paper, could… not be more urgently needed.… The earth is the ultimate court of appeals.”

The paper is available from VLS or as a download from the CLI home page at www.vermontlaw.edu/cli.

The VLS Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic (ENRLC) filed a potentially far-reaching lawsuit on behalf of the Environmental Integrity Project and the Sierra Club on February 4 asking the EPA to update its outdated air pollution regulations for nitric acid plants. A key goal of the lawsuit is to prompt the EPA to make a finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and to start regulating nitrous oxide emissions from nitric acid plants. Nitrous oxide is a very powerful greenhouse gas, 310 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and there are many types of inexpensive, effective technologies available to control it.

The lawsuit is the result of many hours of hard work by student clinicians Darin Schroeder ’09, Devorah Ancel ’08, Geoff Sewake ’09, Graham Zorn ’09, Natalie Karas ’09, Brian Lusignan ’10, and Mary Johnson ’09 under the supervision of faculty members Teresa Clemmer, associ-

Kathleen Dooher

ENRLC Challenges EPA on Regulation of Greenhouse Gases

ENRLC student clinician Graham Zorn ’09 discusses case strategy with the team.

ate director of the ENRLC, and Patrick Parenteau, senior counsel to the ENRLC. The students’ involvement has provided

a pivotal learning experience in addition to meaningful work on climate change regulation.

spring 2009

Discovery

Growing Green Communities: Infrastructure Development and the Environment On February 19–20, the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law hosted a symposium at VLS on developing and implementing new infrastructure to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and to strengthen the health and vitality of our communities.

Professor Mark Mihaly introduced keynote speaker Professor Timothy Duane as a man whose “mind exists outside of the box.” Professor Duane spoke eloquently about the need to integrate land use, transportation, and energy development.

He pointed out that interracial marriage was illegal less than 50 years ago and that Martin Luther King gave his “I have a dream” speech only 46 years before Amer-

ica elected an African American to be its president. America can change, he said, although not without overcoming social, cultural, and political barriers.

Throughout the conference, panels explored emerging technologies, public policy options, and potential challenges that will be faced in upgrading existing infrastructure. Topics included Implementing Sustainable Land Use and Urban Design Projects, Land Use Litigation and Act 250, The Public Trust Doctrine and Environmental Design, Paving the Way for Efficiency through Our Transport Systems, and Restructuring the Grid and Developing Renewables in Our Communities.

2009 VJEL Symposium keynote speaker, Professor Timothy Duane

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Students Work on Amicus Brief to U.S. Supreme Court When the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of State of Vermont v. Michael Brillon in January, Professor Cheryl Hanna and students from her Women and the Law class were sitting in the gallery. Hanna’s class had filed an amicus brief in November with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of a coalition of 18 victims’ rights groups from across the country, including the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, which were concerned that the Vermont Supreme Court ruling on the case would adversely affect the prosecution of domestic and sexual assault cases.

Ten students became involved in all aspects of coordinating and writing the amicus brief, dividing up the duties of research, fact checking, writing citations, and ensuring that the brief’s format complied with the rules of the U.S. Supreme Court. Said third-year student Jennifer Kuntz, “The brief was an opportunity for our class to participate at the highest level

Taylor Neff ’09, Victoria Lloyd ’09, Erin Woolley ’10, Professor Cheryl Hanna, Maja Toncic ’09, Danna Cooper ’09, and Del Greer ’09 on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court Building

of the judiciary, gain practical experience, and represent Vermont Law School in the national legal community.”

In a 7–2 decision on March 9, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed and

remanded the Vermont Supreme Court’s decision.

The brief is available at http://www. abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/jan09. shtml.

Land Use Institute Hosts Prominent Scholar Joseph L. Sax Is the current legal framework relating to regulatory takings fair? On February 5, Joseph Sax, the James H. House and Hiram H. Hurd Endowment Professor of Environmental Regulation, Emeritus, at University of California, Berkeley, explored this issue at Vermont Law School. The 2009 Norman Williams Distinguished Lecturer in Land Use and the Law, Sax spoke on “The Property Rights Sweepstakes: Has Anyone Held the Winning Ticket?”

Fairness still seems to elude the American justice system in the realm of property regulation, Sax said, and many cases tend

to “nag at our sense of justice.” Using a hypothetical situation drawn largely from Agins v. Tiburon (1980), Sax explained that to a large extent, land use laws and property regulations often place burdens on individual property owners while the public reap the rewards. In the Agins-like case, a property owner who had purchased five acres of land in the 1960s in a relatively undeveloped town outside of San Francisco found himself facing regulations a decade later aimed at maintaining open space, limiting his ability to develop the land.

“After nearly three decades struggling

with the problem, the U.S. Supreme Court seems finally to have given up the effort to formulate workable rules for regulatory takings,” Sax said. “The theoretical battle appears to be over, at least for the present, with no winners. But there are losers, landowners who are clearly victims of inequity, if not of constitutional wrongs.”

Erratum: 2008 Commencement keynote speaker, the Honorable Madeleine M. Kunin, was formerly ambassador to Switzerland, not Poland, as stated in the fall 2008 issue of Loquitur.

spring 2009

Climate change has no boundaries. It has the potential to affect ecosystems, economics, food supply, political stability, health, and human rights. Vermont Law School has long been a leading force in the movement to keep climate change before the public, creating legal approaches to mitigate it and preparing its students to act effectively against it.

With new leadership in the White House, what changes are afoot? What are some of the law school’s current energy and climate efforts? And after a hard day’s work, how do faculty, staff, alumni, and students keep up the climate fight at home?

President Obama’s Green Team Tackles Climate Change

Following the 2008 presidential election, Professor Pat Parenteau recommended 10 steps that then President-elect Barack Obama could take within the first 100 days to jump-start action on climate change (http://www.boalt.org/elq), arguably the most serious challenge facing the federal government, with potential consequences that dwarf even the current crisis in global financial markets. It will take all the new president’s intellect, political skill, and popular support to forge from this crisis a stronger, more sustainable economy and the safeguards necessary for a livable planet.

President Obama’s inaugural address set the stage for confronting the gathering menace of climate change. He promised to “restore science to its rightful place.” Noting that “each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet,” he pledged to “harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.” To the nations of the world looking for leadership on international issues, he said: “With old friends and former foes,

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we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the specter of a warming planet.” He acknowledged the responsibility that wealthier nations have to the developing nations of China and India: “And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.”

Obama has chosen a phenomenal group of scientists and environmental advocates to put those words into action. For the first time, we have a special envoy for climate change (attorney Todd Stern, who will negotiate U.S. climate agreements) and an energy and climate czar (Carol Browner, former EPA head). Physicist Steven Chu is the first scientist (not to mention a Nobel Prize-winner) to head the Department of Energy.

John Holdren, White House science advisor, is a physicist and environmental policy specialist known for advocating decisive climate action. Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, commented on these selections: “If this team can’t advance strong national policy [on climate change], then no one can.”

Change started day one as President Obama issued executive orders to ensure transparency in government decision making. Linking economic recovery with energy independence and climate protection, Congress passed a $787 billion stimulus bill including over $80 billion in clean energy investments for building weatherization, energy efficiency and conservation grants, renewable energy and electricity transmission loan guarantees, and tax incentives for solar and wind.

The president also froze the Bush administration’s “midnight rules” and directed the Department of Justice to consider settlement of lawsuits against rules that have already gone

Digital Vision Photography

By Regina Kuehnemund and Patrick A. Parenteau

Turning Planetary Crisis Into Global Opportunity

spring 2009 11

into effect. One example is the rule repealing the consultation requirements of the Endangered Species Act and prohibiting federal agencies from considering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the act.

Bigger battles lie ahead. The president renewed his commitment to passage of a comprehensive, economy-wide capand-trade program to reduce GHG emissions by 80 percent by 2050. And he has clearly signaled that the United States is prepared to negotiate a new, more inclusive global agreement to curb emissions worldwide. With the scientific community voicing more insistent warnings every day, there is not a moment to lose.

VLS Seeks Climate Action

The scope is staggering; the questions countless. Is clean coal fact or fantasy? Is ethanol an option? What rights do developing countries have to energy? Do future generations have rights to stable ecosystems? Long before climate change made it into inaugural addresses, Vermont Law School was researching these questions and training lawyers to take them on. The answers may be as tangible as leasing your rooftop to a utility, or as philosophical as redefining the legal obligations of current generations to future ones.

Present, Tense

Asked which of the many research projects at the Institute for Energy and the Environment (IEE) carries the most immediate consequences, Professor and Director Michael Dworkin heads straight for coal. “We’re trying to stop plans for new, conventional coal facilities by outlining the financial risks for investors,” he says of IEE’s publications and presentations on that issue. As for “clean coal,” it’s a long way off. However, researching methods to mitigate coal’s impact, such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), makes sense, he adds, since many countries intend to burn their coal. Dworkin and his crack research team of 11 students, the Energizers, are collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University to frame the nascent legal and technical parameters for CCS. Next in urgency, the veteran energy regulator targets “hands-on application of energy efficiency on the broadest possible scale,” followed by a switch to renewables. Jack Sautter,

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a PhD, U.S. Marine lieutenant, Vermont Law JD, and IEE’s first Global Energy Fellow, works on two such projects. Sautter is one of five Energizers who have traveled to farm conferences nationwide, speaking on panels and distributing the IEE’s Farmer’s Guide to Energy Self-Reliance, a booklet whose conservation and on-farm renewable energy suggestions help independent farmers achieve a smaller carbon footprint and a healthier bottom line.

As for renewables, IEE is cutting a path for distributed generation photovoltaic. “Nobody’s ever done this before,” Sautter says. “We’re opening a different door to renewables on a massive scale.” One of the questions driving this project: “Can a utility recover the cost of a solar panel distributed generation—say, 5,000 panels on leased private roofs—the same way it would profit from one huge asset like a coal-fired power plant?” To encourage a “yes,” Sautter’s team has crafted model documents utilities can use to develop a compatible grid.

While the IEE has criticized industrially produced corn ethanol in its publication The Rush to Biofuels, the ethanol question remains open, says Energizer Kari Twaite ’10, a dual JD/MEM candidate with VLS and Yale, who is researching cellulosic ethanol sources—switchgrass, wood chips—that bypass food-based ethanol’s drawbacks. She is also helping to prepare a book in which varied authors address international energy justice issues. “We’re asking how we can reduce carbon in the atmosphere while meeting developing countries’ needs,” she says, a question that resonates with her ethical motivations for pursuing an energy-related career.

These and other projects—conservation measures for China’s grid, modeling consumer choices in transportation—equip each semester’s 11 Energizers with vital, hands-on experience with the environmental/energy connection. Dworkin estimates that since 2004, VLS has graduated 200 students conversant in energy and climate issues, and 50 prepared to lead the conversation on what he considers “the most important problem addressing humanity.”

Future, Imperfect

Some climate problems will affect humanity for at least 1,000 years, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently announced, even if carbon output were cut immediately. The report throws into high relief a new

paper by the Climate Legacy Initiative (CLI), a collaboration between VLS’s Environmental Law Center and The University of Iowa’s Center for Human Rights. Professor Tracy Bach, CLI associate project director, senior research fellow, and coauthor of the paper with CLI director Professor Burns H. Weston, emeritus professor of The University of Iowa and visiting professor at VLS, explains, “Ethics has a developed literature about one generation’s duty to another. We’re asking, ‘How could the law codify that?’”

Recalibrating the Law of Humans with the Laws of Nature: Climate Change, Human Rights, and Intergenerational Justice attempts answers (see page 7). Bach and Weston used a threepart framework developed by Professor Edith Brown Weiss of Georgetown University, a member of CLI’s expert panel, to

Selected Climate-Related Courses at VLS

ABCs of Analyzing Energy and the Environment

judge law on its fairness to future generations: Does the law conserve options for future generations? Would all have equal access? Would the overall quality of the environment be preserved? Applying these principles to current laws in screening civil, common, and indigenous peoples’ law in the U.S. and selected foreign countries, Weston and Bach highlighted where laws achieved one or two but not all of these goals. “Our paper gives the reader concrete illustrations of how the approach to intergenerational climate law could play out,” Bach says, and additional recommendations from experts and academics move the discussion toward assuming this generation has a legal as well as moral duty, and future generations have rights. “In a climate change context, how do we bind ourselves to future generations?” the CLI asks.

The CLI is now disseminating its results to policy-makers.

“We’re contacting other law schools with climate change programs, think/do tanks, law organizations, and environmental nonprofits,” Bach notes. She and the CLI advisers are identifying pivotal stakeholders for a summer conference that will help determine how this generation can take the long—and just—view on climate change.

Advanced Energy Writing Seminar America’s Energy Crisis: Eight Fridays with National Experts (2009 Summer Session) Biodiversity Protection Climate Change and the Law Climate Change Litigation Energy, Development, and Climate Change Energy Law and Policy in a Carbon-Constrained World Energy Project Finance and Development Energy Regulation and the Environment Environmental Law and Regulation in China Extinction and Climate Change Nuclear Power and Public Policy Renewable Energy and Other Alternative Fuels VLS Alumni receive half off the audit rate tuition: $200 per credit.

Climate Change Gets Personal

Climate consciousness has long colored academics and campus life at VLS. Faculty and students research incentives for U.S. utilities to adopt renewable energy or to help Chinese lawyers forge clean air regulations. The Campus Greening Committee meets weekly to discuss new ways to lessen VLS students’ dependence on cars—ride-sharing? Zipcar leasing?—and is working with VLS’s food service to start a composting program. Buildings and Grounds staff keep the law school’s energy-efficient building systems performing at optimum levels and the recycling program running. Increasingly, VLS professors reduce their carbon footprint by holding meetings and presenting papers via virtual conferencing and webinars rather than flying to present in person.

The end of the day doesn’t close the door on carbon awareness. The professors, staff, and students interviewed for this story are all veterans of the basics: reducing, reusing, recycling—and replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents or LEDs. How else do they shrink their carbon footprints—and how can you? Read on.

spring 2009 13

Kathleen Dooher

Professor Pat Parenteau

•

•

Mark Washburn

• • •

“I try to eat ‘low on the food chain’ and have reduced my meat consumption.” The Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. reports that global livestock production generates about 18 percent of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

His family grows a lot of their own fruits and vegetables, raises chickens for eggs and meat, and supports a CSA (community supported agriculture). California strawberries in January? No way.

He gets an energy audit every two years and upgrades as appropriate.

All his appliances are Energy Star certified.

He drives a Prius.

Kari Twaite JD/MEM’10

•

•

Mark Washburn

•

Professor Tracy Bach

•

• • •

14 loquitur

“Even small actions make you feel you’re a participant in the larger social process; of course, we can’t meet this problem without major policy changes—and that’s a good reason to be a lawyer!”

She tried to make it to her 30th birthday without buying a car—tough in Vermont. At least her new Honda Fit gets 38 mpg.

Although she can’t change her apartment building’s system, her utility work has made her a fan of solar hot water systems, which pay back quickly.

Driving is nearly unavoidable in Vermont. “I plan my errands. I’ve told my kids, ‘I’m a bus driver, not a chauffeured limousine.’”

Her family invested the money to fully insulate their old farmhouse.

She limits air travel.

“I lived in Rwanda and saw how extremely poor countries are vulnerable to climate change, so my family targets its philanthropy to helping them develop and adapt.”

Mark Washburn

Jack Sautter ’08, Global Energy Fellow

•

•

“I’m getting married in July on Long Island and am buying certified offsets for the travel for our wedding guests.

The catering will be local vegetables, seafood, and locally raised buffalo.”

He bikes to work in spring, summer, and fall.

Professor Michael Dworkin

Rose McNulty

•

• •

Most importantly, he reinsulated his house, through Efficiency Vermont. Sealing and insulating your home can save more than 20 percent on heating and cooling costs.

He installed a preprogrammed thermostat that turns down the heat at night or when everyone’s at work.

He carpools to VLS with colleagues. “My Prius is a small thing, but it carries some symbolism.”

Courtney Collins, Environmental Programs Coordinator and Campus Greening Committee Staff Cochair

• •

Mark Washburn

• •

She carpools to work.

“I make a huge effort to buy local and organic food.” The average supermarket food purchase has been shipped 1,500 miles using fossil fuels.

She composts her food waste and is planting a vegetable garden this spring.

“I’m not afraid to speak up when I see wasteful behavior.”

Think your household doesn’t make a difference? Think again:

If every room air conditioner sold in the U.S. met Energy Star criteria, it would prevent 1.3 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions—the equivalent of taking 115,000 cars off the road.

If every American home replaced their five most frequently used bulbs with compact fluorescents, it would save close to $8 billion each year in energy costs and make a greenhouse gas reduction equivalent to the emissions from nearly 10 million cars.

spring 2009 15

Faculty Highlights “Gus is among a small number of thought leaders on international environmental law and policy.”

—Dean Jeff Shields

International Environmental Leader Gus Speth to Join VLS James Gustave Speth, currently the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, will join Vermont Law School’s faculty on July 1, 2010.

Prior to becoming dean at Yale, Speth served for six years as administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. Over his career, he has held the positions of chair of the U.N. Develop-

16 loquitur

ment Group, founder and president of the World Resources Institute, professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, chairman of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, and senior attorney and cofounder of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Gus is among a small number of thought leaders on international environ-

mental law and policy. He will be particularly valuable to Vermont Law School as we work to further strengthen both our policy work and our academic program,” said Dean Jeff Shields. “Gus has been an extraordinary teacher, scholar, and leader on environmental matters for 40 years.”

Speth has provided leadership and entrepreneurial initiatives to many task forces and committees working to combat environmental degradation, including the President’s Task Force on Global Resources and Environment, the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development, and the National Commission on the Environment. Among his awards are the National Wildlife Federation’s Resources Defense Award; the Natural Resources Council of America’s Barbara Swain Award of Honor; a Special Recognition Award from the Society for International Development; the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Environmental Law Institute; and the Blue Planet Prize.

His publications include The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability; Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment; and articles in Foreign Affairs, Environmental Science and Technology, and other journals and books.

Speth is excited to be joining the VLS faculty. “This is a wonderful opportunity.

The school is now a leading international center for the study and teaching of environmental law, with a great faculty and great students.”

Faculty Highlights

New Faculty and New Home for Legal Writing

Professor Johanna Dennis

Professor Brian Porto

an assistant professor. He is a practicing attorney and served as judicial clerk to Vermont Supreme Court Justice Denise Johnson, Judge William Garrard of the Indiana Court of Appeals, and New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice William Johnson.

He previously taught at Yankton College in South Dakota, Macalester College in

Minnesota, and Norwich University in Vermont. He is also a frequent commentator on Vermont Public Radio.

For more information on the Legal Writing Program and its faculty, visit the VLS website at: http://www.vermontlaw. edu/Academics/Legal_Writing_Program. htm.

Vermont Historical Society

Last October, the Legal Writing Program moved to an elegantly restored building just off the town green known as the Old Schoolhouse, which served as South Royalton’s first graded school when it was built in 1853. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the building was in a state of disrepair when VLS purchased it in early 2008 and undertook the historic restoration.

“Under the direction of Professor Greg Johnson, Vermont Law School’s Legal Writing Program has received great attention,” VLS President and Dean Jeff Shields said, noting that its three-semester approach integrates training in legal research, writing, and appellate advocacy.

“This program is unique in its depth and structure. Its success explains, in part, the consistent positive comments of employers about the writing and advocacy skills of our graduates.” As part of the school’s commitment to proficiency in legal research and writing, Johanna Dennis and Brian Porto were recently appointed to serve as associate professors of law in the program.

Johanna Dennis joins the VLS faculty from Touro College, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, on Long Island. She has also taught legal writing at Florida A&M University College of Law. She clerked for the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, after graduating in 2005 from Temple University School of Law. Dennis also has a master of science in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University School of Arts and Sciences, Advanced Academic Program. She is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar and a licensed patent attorney who has published articles on patent law.

Brian Porto, who holds a JD from Indiana University and a PhD from Miami University, first came to VLS in 2007 as

(Left) South Royalton’s graded school circa 1860 and (right) the Legal Writing team in front of the restored and renovated Old Schoolhouse in 2009

spring 2009 17

Faculty Highlights

On January 30, 2009, many from the VLS community and beyond gathered at the law school to honor Professor Michael Mello, known internationally for his expertise in death penalty litigation and locally as a devoted teacher, mentor, friend, and colleague. As these comments show, he touched many lives:

“He was brilliant, endlessly creative, utterly committed, fearless, and funny. Michael was a modern day version of St. Jude, the patron saint of desperate cases. Michael won most of his. He will be deeply missed, especially by those whom the world forgets. They have lost one of their best and truest advocates.”

— Michael Millemann, Jacob A. France Professor of Public Interest Law, The University of Maryland School of Law “Professor Mello worked his whole life toward fairness, justice, and humanity in society’s punishment of criminals or the unfairly/wrongly accused. He was an inspiration to many people at the law school and in the country, a hero to those he helped save, and a passionate teacher and friend.”

—Susan Baker ’08 “One of the things I loved about Michael was the way he actually listened to what I had to say whether he agreed or not. At times, he had that little smile on his face when I got done and asked me a question that demolished everything I had just said.

If we remember him for nothing else, let us redouble our commitment in Michael’s name to commit to do justice for all.”

— Professor Paul Ferber “A framed petition granting certiorari to review a death penalty verdict vied with cartoons drawn by an artistic death-row 18 loquitur

client in his museum-like office. But mostly what I remember is the fathomless patience he showed his students and his friends. I provided research for his book on the Unabomber and made line-by-line edits on an early draft. It’s impossible to repay my debt of gratitude to Mike, but maybe with the new LRAP fund in his honor, we can all contribute to continuing his influence on young lawyers.”

— Ellen Swain Veen ’99

The Free-Lance Star

A Celebration of Michael A. Mello, Professor of Law 1957–2008

In 1979 Mello protests the suspension of four Mary Washington College students suspected of marijuana possession

“Simply put, Professor Mello reminded me why I wanted to become a lawyer.

Through his stories of cases he had tried, and his obvious passion for public advocacy, he inspired the class to participate in a way no other professor did.”

— Malcolm Tramm ’08 “He was an honorable man with the courage of his convictions, willing to risk both of his professional careers to stand up for what he knew to be justice. Having had the opportunity to get to know him has made us all better people.”

— Mary Aschenberg, Business Services Assistant “The front of Michael’s urn is inscribed, ‘It’s time for the work I’ve done to speak for me.’ Michael lives on in the words he has left us and in the thousands of people who heard his testimony, lectures, presentations, and interviews and came away with a fuller understanding of the role race and class play in our legal system. Michael taught me something every day, from what the United States Supreme Court had just done to the exclusionary rule to a new trick with one of the cats to his firm belief that Hanukkah was best celebrated while wearing a puffy menorah hat on your head.”

— Deanna Mello ’99

Mello teaching circa 1992

Mello with former research assistant Ellen Swain Veen ’99 in 2007

Faculty Highlights

The Work of Michael Mello

1988–2008 Professor of Law, Vermont Law School 1987–1988 Associate, Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, Washington, D.C.

1985–1986 Senior Assistant, Office of the Capital Collateral Representative for the State of Florida 1983–1985 Assistant Public Defender, Capital Appeals Division Office of the Florida Public Defender 1982–1983 Law Clerk to Judge Robert S. Vance, United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, Birmingham, Alabama

Mello testifies about racial profiling for the Vermont Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in July 2008.

Authored or coauthored seven books, including Legalizing Gay Marriage (2004), The Wrong Man: A True Story of Innocence and Death Row (2001), Dead Wrong: A Death Row Lawyer Speaks Out Against Capital Punishment (1997).

Authored or presented more than 50 articles, lectures, panel discussions, and testimony on topics including capital punishment, civil liberties, civil rights, and same-sex marriage.

For more remembrances, access the Michael Mello blog from the VLS home page at www.vermontlaw.edu. To contribute to the LRAP in Michael Mello’s honor, email dheinrichs@vermontlaw.edu.

Michael and Deanna Mello ’99 at a 1998 book signing

spring 2009 19

Faculty Highlights

Faculty News Professor Tracy Bach presented two papers based on the Climate Legacy Initiative’s (CLI) policy paper, Recalibrating the Law of Humans with the Laws of Nature: Climate Change, Human Rights, and Intergenerational Justice (see page 7). The first paper, titled “Why and how the new administration should expressly account for intergenerational justice when forging climate policy,” was presented in February at the symposium on Climate Policy for the Obama Administration, sponsored by the Washington and Lee University School of Law and its Journal of Energy, Climate, and Environment and Environmental Law Society. The paper will be published in the inaugural issue of the Journal (http://law.wlu.edu/jece/).

While teaching at the University of Paris 13 in March, lecturing on topics ranging from climate change and genocide to legal ethics and the U.S. legal system, she presented a second paper based on the CLI policy paper, “Les juridictions américaines face aux changement climatique,” (“Climate Change in U.S. Courts”) at the symposium on Changements climatiques et défis du droit, sponsored by the Centre d’études et de recherches administratives et politiques (CERAP) de l’Université de Paris 13. The presentation will be published in a volume marking this journée d’études.

Since returning from her summer 2008 journey to the Arctic, Visiting Professor Betsy Baker has been sharing her expertise and experiences at many conferences.

Baker was a panelist at the December 2008 Conference on Climate Change and Security Policy in Hanover, New Hampshire, organized by The Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and The University of the Arctic Institute for Applied Circumpolar Policy. A key goal for the meeting was identifying the policy priorities and rela20 loquitur

tionships between science and policy in addressing the issues associated with rapid environmental change in the north. Also in December, Baker presented “Sciencedriven cooperation and policy: Addressing Canadian/U.S. diplomatic concerns in the Arctic,” at the Arctic Change 2008 Conference in conjunction with the International Polar Year, in Québec City. At the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Professor Baker presented “Mapping for Advocacy—Using Marine Geophysical Data to Establish the Limits of the Extended Continental Shelves under the Convention on the Law of the Sea,” with Bernard Coakley of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska. In February, Professor Baker spoke about Russia’s extended continental shelf claims at the American University International Law Review Journal’s symposium on Russia and the Rule of Law. Scientific American discusses her three-week journey aboard a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker, where she worked with a team of scientists to map the Arctic’s outer continental shelf, in a November 10 article, “Drawing Lines

in the Sea: Nations Stake Claims on Arctic Ocean Riches.”

Professor Liz Ryan Cole reports the success of yet another of VLS’s workshops for professors and practitioners. Supervision Skills No. 1: Effective Feedback—Performance Critique brought together a mix of clinical law teachers and mentors (including VLS alumni) for a three-day workshop in Hanover, New Hampshire, in January.

The workshop incorporated adult learning theory, a feedback template, ethics issues, “and some of those supervision questions that keep you up nights.” Cole plans to offer this workshop again next January in Hanover—and possibly another session elsewhere in North America within the next year.

Professor Jason Czarnezki has been reelected to serve on the Executive Committee of AALS Natural Resources Law Section. He was also named to the Science and Policy Advisory Committee of the Vermont Natural Resources Board Water Resources Panel. He presented

Professor Michael Dworkin accepts the Mary Kilmarx Award from Commissioner Rick Morgan.

John Sherman

Faculty Highlights

“Sustainability? Individual Consumption and Household Environmentalism” at the AALS annual meeting in San Diego in January.

Professor Tim Duane was elected to the Executive Committee of the AALS Section on Environmental Law at the AALS annual meeting in January. Duane’s article “Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Vehicle Miles Traveled: Integrating the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) with the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32),” coauthored with Joanna D. Malaczynski, was published in the winter 2009 issue of Ecology Law Quarterly (Vol. 36, No. 1).

Professor Michael Dworkin was honored by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) for his work founding the Institute for Energy and the Environment. The Mary Kilmarx Award was presented to Dworkin during their annual meeting in New Orleans on November 17, 2008. The award is given annually by the NARUC’s Energy Resources and the Environment (ERE) Committee to an individual whose work promotes environmentally sustainable and affordable energy services. “Michael Dworkin’s work in the energy and environmental field is internationally known, and his commitment to education and conservation as demonstrated with the Institute for Energy and the Environment made him an ideal candidate for the Mary Kilmarx Award,” said Commissioner Rick Morgan of the District of Columbia, who presented the award on behalf of the ERE Committee. “This award recognizes those who have gone above and beyond the call of duty—traits that personify Michael Dworkin.”

Professor Stephen Dycus published “Domestic Military Intelligence Activities” in U.S. National Security, Intelligence

and Democracy: The Church Committee and the War on Terror 162 (Russell Miller ed., London: Routledge 2008). At the AALS annual meeting, he was elected treasurer of the Section on National Security Law, for which he served as founding chair five years ago. He was named a senior editor and a member of the board of editors of the Journal of National Security Law and Policy at its annual board meeting. Dycus was the first recipient, in 2008, of the Richard Brooks Faculty Scholarship Prize at VLS. Professor Stephanie Farrior published “Human Rights Advocacy in Gender Issues: Challenges and Opportunities in the Coming Decade,” the lead article in the inaugural issue of Journal of Human Rights Practice (P. Gready, B. Phillips, eds.).

In addition, her article “United Nations Commission on the Status of Women” appears in Encyclopedia of Human Rights (David P. Forsythe, ed., Oxford Univ.

Press, 2009). This five-volume encyclopedia offers comprehensive coverage of all aspects of human rights theory, practice, law, and history.

Professor Jackie Gardina was elected to the governing board of the Society of American Law Teachers. Her article “Let the Small Changes Begin: President Obama, Executive Power, and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” is the lead article in the May 2009 issue of Boston University’s Public Interest Law Journal.

Professor Cheryl Hanna delivered the Ruth Bader Ginsburg keynote lecture at the Ninth Annual Women and the Law Conference on February 27 at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. Her lecture, “Behind the Castle Walls: Balancing Privacy and Security in Domestic Abuse Cases,” will be published by the Thomas Jefferson Law Review. On March 20, Hanna spoke at a St. John’s Univer-

Professor Greg Johnson was appointed director of the Legal Writing Program.

sity School of Law symposium, “Thinking Outside the Box: New Challenges and New Approaches to Domestic Violence.”

Her talk, “Supreme Court Advocacy on Behalf of Victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence” will be published in the Journal of Legal Commentary. In November, Hanna presented training in ethics and decision-making at New Legislator Orientation in Montpelier. This is the fourth class of new legislators she has trained.

Hanna, with the assistance of the students in her Women and the Law class, filed an amicus brief in State of Vermont v. Michael Brillon. The case was argued before the United States Supreme Court on January 13, 2009. (See story on page 9.) The brief is available at http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/jan09.shtml.

At the AALS annual meeting, Professor Greg Johnson presented “Centering Sexual Orientation in the Legal Writing Curriculum” for the Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity’s panel on “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Across the Curriculum.”

The National Law Journal featured “Superfund scholar” and VLS Professor Martha Judy in a February article that explored the legal changes that could result from two Superfund cases being heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Judy told the publication that if the court were to reverse the lower court’s rulings, “It will spring 2009 21

Faculty Highlights

become harder for EPA and private parties to clean up sites and to recover costs. EPA and taxpayers will have to pay for cleanup.

That’s not what Congress had in mind with Superfund.”

Professor Reed Loder’s article “Epistemic Integrity and the Environmental Future” appears in 32 Environs Environmental Law and Policy Journal 1-36 (Fall 2008).

Professor Michael McCann moderated the AALS Sports and the Law section program on the emerging nexus between sports and immigration law at the annual meeting in San Diego. McCann also was a panelist on labor issues in pro sports during the University of Florida Levin College of Law’s 2009 UF Sports Law Symposium.

Professor Janet Milne is the lead editor of the book Mountain Resorts: Ecology and the Law, published by Ashgate in February. Milne is the author of the book’s first chapter and the lead coauthor of the final chapter, and she worked extensively with the authors of the book’s case studies of Killington (Vermont), Loon Mountain (New Hampshire), Whiteface Mountain (New York), and Mont Tremblant (Québec, Canada) resorts.

VLS alumna Julia LeMense LLM’03 also served as a coeditor and author, and alumnus Roger Fleming ’99 authored one of the case studies. Robert Gruenig LLM’01 participated in the early phases of the project, and numerous VLS students served as research assistants. The book is second in the series on ecology and the law that Professor Emeritus Richard Brooks spearheads, and which was born of a 2002 Vermont Journal of Environmental Law symposium.

Milne says the book provides “a useful comparison of how four very different legal regimes approach mountain resort expansions and provides very useful analysis of the extent to which the law can take an ecosystem approach.”

22 loquitur

Professor Philip Meyer ’80 cowrote Making Our Clients’ Stories Heard: A Guide to Narrative Strategies for Appellate and Postconviction Lawyers with Anthony G. Amsterdam. The book is currently available on CD from the Defender Services Office of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

VLS’s Environmental Tax Institute has published The Reality of Carbon Taxes in the 21st Century in cooperation with the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law. The book features Professor Janet Milne’s article “Carbon Taxes in the United States: The Context for the Future.” Milne helped solicit other carbon tax articles for this print publication, available through Barrister’s Bookstore at www.vermontlaw. edu/barristers. In November 2008, Milne presented a paper on carbon taxes versus cap-and-trade regimes, “Urban Emissions: The Burdens and Risks of Market-based Administration,” at the Ninth Annual Conference on Environmental Taxation in Singapore. She also chaired plenary panels and provided closing comments.

Participants from 24 countries attended the conference, which was cosponsored by the Environmental Tax Policy Institute.

President and Dean Jeff Shields has been elected to the board of trustees at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, Vermont. In addition, Shields was chosen

by Senator Patrick Leahy, Senator Bernard Sanders, and the Bar Association Board of Managers to serve on the search committee to find a new federal judge to fill the seat being vacated by Judge J. Garvan Murtha.

Professor Linda Smiddy has been invited and reappointed to membership in the AALS Committee on International Cooperation. The charter of the committee is to advise the AALS executive committee on how best to meet the challenges of the impact of globalization on legal education and to help develop a strategy for meeting those challenges. Other members of the committee include the deans of Georgetown and American University law schools.

Vice Dean Stephanie Willbanks hosted a breakfast for Academic Deans at the AALS annual meeting in San Diego, and on January 13 she testified before the Vermont House Judiciary Committee on a probate reform bill.

At the AALS annual meeting, Professor Kinvin Wroth represented VLS in the AALS House of Representatives, chaired a joint meeting of the AALS and ABA Government Relations committees, was elected to the Executive Committee of the AALS Section on North American Cooperation, and met with the dean and senior administrators of John Marshall Law School-Atlanta, where, in March, he chaired an ABA site inspection team.

Professor Tseming Yang recently highlighted the work of the VLS Partnership for Environmental Law in China on Vermont Public Radio’s “Green Series.” The series features the work of people who are finding innovative solutions to environmental problems.

Kathleen Dooher

yor

Expand Our Reach

Join fellow alumni and friends in building the future of the South Royalton Legal Clinic.

To learn more about the campaign to secure its new residence, go to www.vermontlaw.edu/ legalclinicproject or call Jennifer Hayslett, Senior Director for Leadership Gifts and Annual Giving, at 802-831-1318.

John Douglas/Flying Squirrel Graphics

Since 1982 the South Royalton Legal Clinic has helped hundreds of Vermont children, incarcerated women, couples in crisis, immigrants, veterans, and those without other recourse. Â Now the clinic needs your help.

By Deborah Solomon Reid

Pride in Practice One semester that changes lives

attorney who serves as a mentor. “One of the great joys of the job is to watch students toward the end of the semester,” says Jeff White ’87, who spent his semester in practice with Judge Franklin Billings in the U.S. District Court in Rutland. Jeff left private practice after 15 years and now is a member of the VLS faculty supporting students during their practicum. “They’re really emerging as lawyers for the first time.”

The SiP was created by VLS faculty, who wanted to introduce off-site experiential learning into the curriculum. The idea was taken up by then Dean Jonathon Chase, who named the program and hired two experienced attorneys, Liz Ryan Cole and Judith Kasper, as codirectors to design and administer the course. Professor Cole has been with the program ever since, serving as its director and presiding over its evolution into a model for other schools to emulate. “We were one of the first law schools to put significant resources into a full semester-long Mark Washburn

aw school used to be all theory and no practice, with new graduates expected to learn both substantive law and that mysterious combination of skills and acumen known as “lawyering” on the job.

That world is rapidly changing. The prestigious Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, in their 2007 publication Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law, reports on law schools recognizing what VLS has been practicing for a quarter of a century.

A signal offering in this area, the Semester in Practice (SiP) enrolled its first students in 1984. Today more than 1,000 SiP graduates are part of the flow of students who have participated in VLS’s full range of experience-based courses. Students in the SiP earn 13 academic credits for a semester spent apprenticing away from campus in a governmental, public interest, or private legal setting under the guidance of an experienced

Professor Liz Ryan Cole with a student

spring 2009 25

“When other law schools consider adding a practicum-based course to their curriculum, they call us to find out what we do.” — Professor Liz Ryan Cole

Mark Washburn

practicum” she says. “Today, when other law schools consider adding a practicum-based course to their curriculum, they call us to find out what we do.”

The SiP’s academic focus is critical, says Cole, who has developed course materials and procedures to quantify the educational experience and satisfy the American Bar Association’s accreditation standards. Students participate in a seminar, currently taught online, and submit journals recording their activities (while never breaching confidentiality) and personal reactions for discussion with their VLS-based faculty. They continue the cycle of learning with a final reflective paper and a plan for their future professional development.

For many participants, the program’s true hallmark is the care that goes into matching each student with a mentor in a placement that will best serve a student’s individual educational

plan. Applicants learn to be very specific about their goals for the semester. Then Cole and White get to work to find the right setting for the pursuit of those goals, whether as close as Montpelier, Vermont, or as distant as New Zealand. “Placements are student driven,” says White. “We’ll consider developing a new placement anywhere a student wants to go.”

Beyond student preference, the critical element in site selection is the mentor, whose guidance will ultimately determine the quality of a student’s SiP experience. This one-on-one relationship is a core element of the SiP’s design, says White.

“It’s a special opportunity for access not usually available in standard internships.”

“We look for people who are experienced, have a passion for what they are doing, and want to share that passion,” says Cole—experienced attorneys with control over their time, expertise in their field, the authority to make things happen, and the desire to share what they know. “You don’t have to give up your practice,” she tells prospective mentors, concerned about the time they may be committing. “Just open your arms and bring the student with you.”

VLS provides support to mentors in many ways. For example, mentors are eligible for full scholarships to workshops VLS offers for attorneys and law professors. When VLS graduate Talha Zobair ’93, now Senior Tax Counsel with Raytheon Company, returned to the Upper Valley for a recent two-day workshop he said, “I still look back to the Semester in Practice program as one of the most outstanding learning experiences I had at VLS. The SiP program left such a positive impression on me that I try where I work to replicate it for other students.”

Nicor Advanced Energy LLC, Chicago, Illinois

Sincere Richards ’09

26 loquitur

Having spent the previous summer working with the public defender in Nashville, Sincere Richards ’09 wanted to learn more about transactional law—contracts, negotiations, mergers and acquisitions. “I also said I would prefer an in-house placement,” he says.

He was matched with Koby Bailey, an attorney with Nicor Advanced Energy LLC, a diversified utility company headquartered in Chicago. As Nicor’s director of regulatory affairs,

Mig Dooley

“From observing him, I learned what it was like to be a lawyer before I was one.” — Jessica Werber ’07

lyze; there’s no stopping point in your brain. But that can slow down efficiency. At Nicor I learned that in business you have to go with the most solid thing you have and present it concisely.” Richards has decided to seek an in-house position after he graduates.

Linowes and Blocher LLP, Bethesda, Maryland

Jessica Werber ’07

Bailey was able to arrange for Richards to sit in on business meetings and see that he was exposed to a variety of company operations—litigation, marketing, and call center engineering as well as regulatory issues. “I asked Koby if I could do some employment work, too,” says Richards, “and he said, ‘Sure. The experience will be good for you.’ We didn’t talk every day, but his door was always open. He was very receptive to any ideas I had.”

“I gave Sincere the same feedback I would have to any young associate,” says Bailey. Among other things, Richards learned that in-house attorneys serve just one client, and that their work product is viewed as part of the production process.

For him this was a new concept. “In law school, you overana-

Jessica Werber ’07 had several goals for her SiP experience: to improve her research and writing skills, gain greater substantive knowledge in an area of environmental law, learn how a law firm worked as a business, and, incidentally, scope out the Washington, D.C. area, where she thought she might like to practice.

She achieved them all during her semester with the Bethesda law firm of Linowes and Blocher LLP, under the guidance of partner Jim Witkin, who probably wins the prize for mentorship. Witkin’s first contact with VLS was through the SiP, and he has mentored more than a dozen SiP students, but he now also takes summer students and master’s degree students and has hired VLS graduates as well. Witkin, who specializes in real estate law and brownfields matters, introduced Werber to the intricacies of the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), as well as a range of other environmental and land use issues. He pulled her into meetings, let her sit in on conference calls, and made sure that she, like his other SiP students, had a chance to get out of the office occasionally—attending conferences and just getting to know the area.

Werber emerged from the SiP with some solid writing samples and a number of attorney contacts in her chosen field, both of which proved useful in her job search. She is now working with the Environmental Integrity Project in D.C., and stays in touch with Witkin to learn what he is doing and hear his thoughts on their common field of interest. “From observing him, I learned what it was like to be a lawyer before I was one,” she says. “He made the projects I did meaningful. He’d say ‘Here’s what I want you to look up and here’s why it’s important.’ He was an excellent teacher. I continue to appreciate that today.” spring 2009 27

“We are part of an extended community with a long tradition central to the way our society works….” — Mark Sciarrotta ’96

Maritime New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand

Of all SiP students, Debra Doby ’09 traveled the farthest to pursue her multiple interests in maritime law, international law, and indigenous peoples. Her faculty supervisor, Bruce Duthu (then VLS’s academic dean and now a professor of Native American studies at Dartmouth College), connected these dots and, influenced by his own experience working with indigenous people in Australia, came up with the perfect point of intersection: New Zealand. Taking this as her cue, Cole activated her far-flung network of contacts, and found a mentor for Doby at Maritime New Zealand (MNZ), a governmental agency located in Wellington.

Stephanie Winson, head of MNZ legal department, expressed an initial reluctance to mentor a student because she understood the increased responsibilities that mentoring entails. Winson later commented that Debra’s “contributions were such that, although there was an increased workload on me as mentor, her performance within the team alleviated much of the daily workload. [She] contributed as an equal member of the legal team in a way that made the other lawyers feel inspired and possibly even challenged.”

Four weeks into Doby’s semester, Duthu paid a personal call—standard SiP procedure in accordance with the American Bar Association requirement for periodic faculty supervision of field-based courses. “It’s important to make sure the student is doing substantive work and not just making copies and fetching coffee,” says Duthu. Another issue that often requires sorting out during these visits is helping with timely and descriptive feedback—on both sides of the equation. Mentors may not know how to give it, and students are often reluctant to ask. “More often than not, students are grateful for the experience and reluctant to make demands,” says White. In such situations a little coaching from the VLS faculty supervisor can go a long way.

At Maritime New Zealand, Duthu found none of these problems. Doby was happily immersed in complex and challenging projects. “Ms. Winson treated me as an attorney instead of an intern. I obtained the rare opportunity to study and interpret international treaties and applied this knowledge daily to resolve various domestic shipping disputes.” Winson 28 loquitur

Debra Doby ’09

proved to be an ideal mentor, sensitive to Doby’s strengths and weaknesses, and generous with her time and counsel. “The four-week assessments were very helpful in guiding us through the process,” Winson later wrote.

Back in Vermont, Doby reflects on what she has gained: the confidence that she can operate successfully within a foreign legal system; the practical techniques Winson taught her for managing her time and counseling clients; and, perhaps most important, the discovery that she truly enjoys the actual practice of law. Her SiP with Maritime New Zealand affirmed her ambition to work in international trade and shipping.

Attorney General’s Office, Montpelier, Vermont

While Doby traveled halfway round the world for her SiP, Trey Martin ’08 stayed in Vermont, where he and his wife had lived on and off since they both graduated from Middlebury College. Martin came to VLS after obtaining graduate degrees in

“This SiP helped me understand that I could be the kind of person I wanted to be, while being the lawyer I wanted to be.” — Trey Martin ’08

Mark Washburn

English literature and education, and teaching for 10 years in public and private schools in Vermont, California, and Ohio.

“I always intended to go to law school eventually,” he says. It just took a little more time than he’d planned. He signed up for the SiP because he saw it as a way to connect with the legal market in Vermont, which can be difficult to break into. His experience turned out to be far richer than he anticipated.

His mentor, Mark Sciarrotta ’96, himself an SiP alumnus, was then a litigator in the Vermont Attorney General’s office.

Sciarrotta, now senior counsel for the Vermont Electric Power Company, had already mentored several other VLS students.

He tries to impart three things to all his students, he says: professionalism (defined as hard work, thorough preparation, applying a common sense take on the issues, and treating the bench and bar with respect); the need for balance between work and personal life; and a commitment to the bar in the largest sense. “Lawyers share a common ideal—the notion that

Trey Martin ’08

the practice of law is important, that courtrooms are sacred.

We are part of an extended community with a long tradition central to the way our society works, and we should treat each other accordingly.”

Martin absorbed this notion along with more day-to-day wisdom. “I shadowed Mark for four months. I read next to him, drafted next to him, and observed when he called home to let his wife know he’d be working late. I learned from him how much organization and discipline it takes to be a lawyer—keeping files organized, making copies, following a schedule. You can’t get anything done if you don’t know where your files are.”

But he also absorbed what he describes as Sciarrotta’s spiritual foundation. “All Mark did was build bridges. He treated everyone with respect, as he wanted to be treated. I learned that you can litigate without being an enemy—it’s not ‘us and them.’

This SiP helped me understand that I could be the kind of person I wanted to be, while being the lawyer I wanted to be.”

Martin is now an associate at Downs Rachlin Martin PLLC, one of Vermont’s leading law firms. His personal qualifications—a high grade point average, varied life experience, and strong references, in addition to having been editor-inchief of the Vermont Law Review—opened that door. That is not to say that SiPs don’t help with postgraduate employment.

The faculty want the SiP to help students make informed choices about career and jobs. “The SiP is not a job placement service,” says Jeff White. And that’s a good thing, he believes, because students who are not looking for a job from a mentor are more willing to ask questions and direct their learning from the experience.

Among the multitude of students and mentors, there is a common thread in these experiences: almost every student who completes an SiP has a deeper understanding of substance and skills than can be obtained in the classroom alone, an enhanced résumé, and helpful contacts. And every successful placement strengthens Vermont Law School’s reputation and creates opportunities for future students. Stephanie Winson was so pleased with Debra Doby’s contribution to Maritime New Zealand that she plans to recommend the SiP program to other government agencies. Nicor’s Koby Bailey is equally enthusiastic: “Sincere was probably the best clerk I ever worked with. I would take another SiP person in a heartbeat.” spring 2009 29

Kathleen Dooher John Sherman

Help VLS train the next generation of solution makers.

Now more than ever, your gift matters.

30  loquitur

Give to the VLS Annual Fund today at www.vermontlaw.edu/ why_give.htm or contact Susan Davidson, Director of Alumni Programming and Annual Giving at 802-831-1315 or sdavidson@ vermontlaw.edu.

Class Notes 1976 Mark Gruber received the 17th Annual Excellence in Continuing Legal Education Award, presented by the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education. Mark is the senior managing partner of Gruber, Colabella, Liuzza, Kutyla and Williams with offices in Hopatcong, Newton, and Hamburg, New Jersey.

1978 Nancy Goldwarg Berger is happily married and the mother of three children: 16, 17, and 19. For the last 10 years she has been actively involved in the field of domestic violence, and works in Chittenden County Family Court running the domestic violence/restraining order hearings. She was sorry to miss reunion in September, and reports that she was “thinking of those gathered in South Royalton as I traveled to Florence and then hopped on my bike for a week riding the roads and drinking the great wine in the Tuscan Hills.”

Dona Cullen is now practicing collaborative law and mediation in Portland, Oregon, after 20 years of general practice in Woodstock, Vermont, and a juvenile public defender contract for a few years in Arizona. She and her husband, Jack, have followed their daughter and her family to Portland. Dona says, “It’s an amazing place to practice this type of law and I’m loving it— but it wasn’t so much fun taking the Oregon bar exam three times! I would love to connect with anyone practicing collaborative law. It’s definitely the way of the future.” See her website at www.powerof peaceportland.com.

Kenneth Oliver was selected and inducted as a New York State Super Lawyer, Hudson Valley Region, by Super Lawyers magazine. He was also rated BV by Martindale Hubbel, which is a rating of very high for both legal ability and ethical standards. Both awards are based on peer recognition. He is a senior partner at

Finkelstein and Partners, as well as Jacoby and Meyers, and with Fine, Olin and Anderman, handling personal injury cases in most states surrounding and including New York and also handling national toxic tort litigation, with an emphasis on toxic drugs.

1979 REUNION SEPTEMBER 2009 Pat Biggam reports: “Sue and I took a break from professional jobs to live and teach in Jeremie, Haiti, last year. I taught English as a Second Language to five classes of junior and senior high school students and two adult classes. I also taught a contracts class at the law school in Jeremie. Sue worked with teachers on literacy instruction. All in all it was a great year— the people we lived with in Jeremie were incredibly happy and generous, despite having very little. Unlike the common media image of Haitians (i.e., violent and destitute), we found the people enjoyed life and friendships, loved talking on their cell phones, and were intensely proud of being Haitians. After the year was over, we returned to our professional lives, and to our Tempur-Pedic mattress—which we really did miss. Now I’m back to Biggam, Fox & Skinner doing workers’ comp and Social Security, and Sue is working for the University of Vermont with a literacy program. Our kids are grown, all living in Vermont, and there are no grandkids as yet.”

Jackie Brilling reports: “December 2003 I was appointed by the governor to serve as secretary to the New York State Public Service Commission, a ‘promotion’ from my former role as an administrative law judge for the commission. I specialize in utilities, environmental, ethics, and administrative law. I am an alternative dispute resolution practitioner and trainer, and I coordinate the provision of ADR services for the commission. I am

the ethics officer, which has mushroomed in terms of workload and time in the past few years! As the corporate officer, I oversee all records, distribution of all incoming matters throughout the agency, and the preparation of all matters coming before the commission for action. I mostly connect dots! My eldest of five children, John Brilling (JB) Horgan, graduated from Cornell Law School in May 2008, passed the New York bar exam last summer, and is employed by Dewey LeBoeuf in Manhattan. My daughter, Alison, is applying to law schools after having worked for three years in the New York State legislature. My son Mickey, my cancer survivor, has successfully recovered from an accident (he was hit by a car in December 2007) and he graduated, by wheelchair, from college last year on time! Andrew is a junior at Lehigh University and plays on their lacrosse team. Matthew, our 6'5" baby, is a freshman at Loyola University in Baltimore. As you might imagine, we are broke from all the tuition payments!

My husband, Michael, is chief of newborn medicine at Albany Medical Center Hospital. For the first time in many years, we are able to finish a conversation without interruption! I look forward to hearing from our classmates.”

John Cross reports: “I had intended to get back for previous reunions, but kept wandering farther and farther away. After 16 years practicing in northern Colorado, I moved to Idaho, and since 1997 have been working for Idaho Legal Aid Services, representing domestic violence victims in protection order, divorce, and custody cases in Southwest Idaho. The Nampa Family Justice Center in Nampa, Idaho, houses prosecutors, the state social services agency, mental health counselors, sexual assault/rape/medical exam services, Spanish interpreters, and a ‘person crimes’ unit of the Nampa police department.”

Brett Herman reports: “I still in practice in Brooklyn, New York. As transactional real estate is not what it was, I have begun doing loan modifications, which spring 2009 31

Reunion 2009 Save the weekend of September 12 Welcoming the classes of 1979, 1989, 1994, 1999, and 2004 For more information, contact alumni@vermontlaw.edu or 802-831-1325.

32  loquitur

Class Notes

is becoming something of a specialty. I attended the 25th reunion, and plan on attending the 30th. Hope to see you all there.”

Andy Jackson reports: “Besides having three children and three grandsons, my news is that I set up a 501(c)(3) organization for a fee-free secondary school my son Rory has created in a tiny fishing village in Ghana (West Africa), where Rory has a 20-acre lot (and nice surf break) on the ocean. We are building the school on an adjacent three-acre lot over the next two years. Google us at Trinity Yard School. I have been practicing solo since 1987, taking a break two years ago for life in southern France and then Utah. I have had rental property in Middlebury for a long time in which I have housed, at different times, beautiful issue from both Patrick Biggam and Lindsey Huddle. I count them as friends, along with their parents!

My best to all classmates.”

Jean Kiewel’s grandson, Abram Newton, was born on March 17, 2008, at home in Jamaica, Vermont, to her daughter and son-in-law, Ilana Jean Savel, and Amos Newton.

Phoebe Mix is now senior legislation counsel for the United States Congress, Joint Committee on Taxation.

Jack Sahl reports: “I was recently appointed director of the Miller-Becker Institution for Professional Responsibility at the University of Akron Law School, where I teach evidence, professional responsibility, and sports and entertainment law. I was also appointed this year to the ABA Standing Committee on Professional Discipline and the Ohio Supreme Court’s Unauthorized Practice of Law Board. Joann and I also adopted two siblings last year—Mandakini (10) and Anish (6). Warm regards to all my classmates!”

Bob Shafer reports: “I’m winding up my eighth year as managing partner of a seven-person firm in my hometown of Tully, New York. I practiced with my brother Rick (aka Charlie) ’77 for 20 years until his retirement from the practice in

2000. Kathleen and I have one daughter, Emma, who graduated from Macalester College last spring. She is currently living in Buenos Aires and deciding what to do with the rest of her life. We had a great time at VLS in September of 2007 when my brother made a gift to the school, dedicating the bell tower in my honor. Ann Debevoise was kind enough to let us use her home for the weekend—we got to hear a lot of history about the school, Dean Debevoise, and their family. The weekend was one of the high points of my life, and I am delighted that it is now part of the VLS history. I took part in last year’s alumni weekend; we had a ball, and I am now looking forward to our 30th this fall.

I had the opportunity to mentor a VLS third-year student this past fall through the Semester in Practice program, a bright and energetic young woman who will join the firm after the bar exam this coming summer. She is from a dairy farming family we have done work for over the years.

She is excited about the opportunity to return to her hometown to start her practice.”

Nancy Sheahan reports: “In my professional life I am a partner in the law firm of McNeil, Leddy & Sheahan in Burlington, Vermont. The majority of my work involves defending civil rights claims. The people I work with are terrific and the work is interesting. In my personal life, my husband, Terry, and I celebrated our 30th anniversary this past summer (ties in nicely with our upcoming VLS 30th reunion). We have three children (Patrick, Corey, and Jamie), all of who are doing great. In my spare time I play hockey, tennis, and golf. Life is good.”

Ron Stamm reports: “For the past 30 years I’ve worked primarily in the public sector in Los Angeles, with my last 20 years at the primary public transportation authority. Between work, family (my wife, and two kids in elementary school), and running marathons, my life is busy and fulfilling. Periodically, I speak to and/ or see Michele Kantor ’80 who lives in

Send us your notes at alumni@vermontlaw.edu

Thousand Oaks, California. I would love to reconnect with my former friends and classmates from VLS.” Patricia Whalen retired from the Vermont Family Court bench this past fall and is currently a justice at the Hague International War Crimes Tribunal in Sarajevo, Bosnia. She has also founded the Afghan Women’s Judicial Education Project, which brings Afghan women judges to Vermont and other locations in the U.S. for education and in-home stays.

1980 After roughly a year as Humboldt County’s interim county counsel, the board of supervisors voted to appoint Wendy Chaitin as county counsel. Wendy has worked with the county counsel’s office for more than 17 years, 12 of those as assistant county counsel.

Tom Clancy recently published a book, The Fourth Amendment: Its History and Interpretation, designed to be an accessible and authoritative resource for scholars, judges, practitioners, and others on U.S. case law regarding searches and seizures by governmental officials.

Raymond Obuchowski and spouse, Marie, are hoping to spend much of the spring in the Carolinas, first at Oak Island, North Carolina, to relax and then in Charleston, South Carolina, to watch his oldest son, Michael, play Division I baseball at Charleston Southern University. His practice is keeping busy with bankruptcies as helped by the economy.

Brian, their youngest son, now lives over the office keeping an eye on the “old man.”

After almost three years working in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., as deputy under secretary for intelligence and analysis, Jack Tomarchio has returned to the private sector. He is now a principal in the Agoge Group LLC, a firm that provides operational consulting work to the U.S. intelspring 2009 33

Class Notes

ligence community. He is also working with several other partners to raise venture capital to invest in later-stage companies with dual-use technology arising from the intelligence, national, and homeland security communities.

1982 Larry Kelly reports that he is no longer practicing as a lawyer, having taken a parttime job as a zoning planner. He is now enjoying 30-hour work weeks with Fridays off.

Kathleen Moore is doing criminal defense for the Committee for Public Counsel Services in the Lowell Superior Court Unit. She moved to Massachusetts to be closer to and more involved with her daughter Lindsay, her son-in-law Shawn, and her two beautiful granddaughters, Taylor Kathleen and Liv Paige. Kathleen also just finished serving as a trial coach in Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop, something she’s been doing since 1990. She said her “Harley has been safely tucked away for the winter and I’m impatiently awaiting spring riding along the ocean in Hampton and the North Shore.”

1984 REUNION MAY 2009 Mike Famiglietti shared the following news, “In addition to occasionally practicing law in Marietta, Georgia, I’ve been racing my Porsche at Road Atlanta in Braselton and Roebling Road in Savannah.

It’s probably not the start of a new career but is a blast! Some of my classmates will remember an “incident” involving my ’67 Corvette and a telephone pole in South Royalton during my second year. My driving has gotten a lot better! (How could it not?)”

Connie Johnson Hambley is now a 34 loquitur

biopharmaceutical and clean tech consultant specializing in senior executive placements and strategy. She has also continued writing, and her work has been published by BusinessWeek. Her three children are 17, 14, and 11, and she spends a lot of time driving to soccer and skiing events and symphony rehearsals for her violin-playing daughter and bass-playing son. Connie says, “I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our 25th reunion this May!” Ora Schwartzberg is happy to announce the publication of her new book, Divorce Mediation from the Inside Out: A Mindful Approach to Divorce. The book is addressed to the general public and provides an analysis of the benefits of obtaining a mediated divorce rather than going through the traditional process. Ora provides mediation services and trainings in the areas of family, business, and real estate law from her offices in Lyme and Piermont, New Hampshire.

1985 Stuart Canton MSEL has been named cochair of the International Environmental Law Committee of the Environmental Law Section of the Boston Bar Association. The International Environmental Law Committee focuses on international environmental issues and laws as well as the laws of foreign countries. Stuart works at the Cadmus Group, where he focuses on strategic environmental management for large organizations and startups.

Energy attorney Thomas O’Donnell has been named managing partner of the law firm Holland & Hart LLP. Tom will oversee the day-to-day management of the Denver-based firm, the region’s largest. He also will help the firm’s management committee carry out its strategic goals. Tom has been chairman of Holland & Hart’s associate and partnership admissions committees. His practice includes representing clients before public utility commissions in Colorado and other western states as

well as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Tom serves on the Board of Litigation of the Mountain States Legal Foundation.

1986 On August 1, 2009, Blythe & Taylor in Northfield, Vermont (David Blythe and Barbara Taylor) will be 20 years old. The firm was originally founded as Blythe, Ross & Taylor with Ron Ross ’87 (a fine attorney and a finer friend), who died in 2003. Barbara was appointed by Governor Howard Dean to the board of trustees of the Vermont State Colleges and served from 1993 to 2005. David served on the Vermont Water Resources Board from 1999–2004 (four years as chairman). Barbara and David were married in October 1986. They have two children and live in Montpelier.

Heidi Siegelbaum is a principal in Calyx, a consulting firm devoted to promoting sustainable tourism in Washington State and the Pacific Northwest bioregion.

The company will work on sustainable tourism development in eastern Washington’s wine country and strengthen the agriculinary network locally (www. calyxsite.com). She is participating in the national consensus process for green conferences and meetings and continues to be a chowhound. Heidi and Rob are enjoying the Pacific Northwest’s outdoor offerings and recently enjoyed a visit with Steven Schlesser ’84 in Portland.

1987 Victoria Rosendahl will have her third book published in the spring of 2009.

Mudder, a mystery for kids aged 8–12, follows the heroes from her successful Kathy & Martha Mystery Series to summer camp. A thief is in their midst: will Kathy and Martha find out who it is in time to save their new friend Mudder? Check out

Class Notes

Holly Groschner ’88 (right) with her daughter, Kate

Holly Ernst Groschner ’88 Back to the Classroom—This Time for Energy Solutions Holly Ernst Groschner knows about climate change, but her activism has grown slowly. At home outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, her family had adopted new efficiencies and cut their energy use by a third. However, when her teenaged daughter, Kate, voiced her fears about the impact of climate change on her own life, the stakes rose. “As a parent I couldn’t give her answers or hope unless I understood what I could do,” she says.

Groschner began applying her legal skills to renewable energy projects for Appalachia by establishing Mountain Community Energy LLC, a subsidiary of The Mountain Institute, an international nonprofit. But there was a lot about the interface between climate change and energy to understand. So last summer she returned to VLS.

“I’d read about Michael Dworkin and the Institute for Energy and the Environment,” she recalls. “I decided to telecommute from VLS and spend the summer getting answers on climate change from nationally known experts.” Returning to the classroom was invigorating. “Students were bright, engaged, and unflinching before the magnitude of their challenging subject. I fell in love with VLS again—you really appreciate returning to campus once you’ve been practicing,” she observed.

Groschner comes from an area whose economy runs on fossil fuels. She reports that, until recently, many people unfamiliar with environmental issues were still questioning if climate change is real. She finds their skepticism somewhat amazing: “While Western Pennsylvania’s universities, such as Carnegie Mellon and Univer-

Send us your notes at alumni@vermontlaw.edu

sity of Pittsburgh, are studying renewables and efficiency, a large sector of the economy is rooted in the production of coal and the consumption of fossil fuels. When discussion turns to renewable energy, my neighbors in mining, steel and energy businesses are grasping for any solution featuring coal.”

At VLS, Groschner got to know Chinese classmates similarly concerned about coal and others tackling energy and climate from all angles. “I was talking with a professor who works at the World Bank, casting about for ideas where I could make an impact,” she recalls. “He said, ‘our response is still in the formative stages. Do whatever you can.’”

Groschner decided to apply her career experience in wireless telecommunications to fostering development of windbased renewables. She sees links between the economics and regulation of cellular towers and wind turbines. “There are many parallels in deployment of wireless telecom and distributed wind generation,” she explains.

Groschner is starting a consulting firm, New Mountain Wind (www.newmountainwind.com), to facilitate “wind for schools” projects with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab and Mountain Community Energy LLC. She is also working with rural land owners and small communities to assess wind-turbine sites for development. While concerned about potential harm to wildlife, she says, “Wind is a readily available resource in a rural market.” And scenery?

“I’ll take turbines over coal mines,” she says, “and they’re removable if something better emerges.”

Groschner has shared her VLS summer experience with daughter Kate. “You need to seek answers to big questions from the very best source you can find,” said Holly, “Kate and I agree that when you know something’s wrong, you find something you can do to help to change it.”

spring 2009 35

Class Notes

Bitter Tastes, the first book in the series, at www.bittertastes.com.

Saundra Swift still practices law, but is no longer doing criminal defense work.

Her husband, Henry, is working in the energy efficiency department for the city of Tallahassee. They are restoring an old farmhouse and gardens. Saundra has been visiting VLS for the last few summers. She would love to hear from classmates. Contact her at 850-656-6391 or sswift@nettally. com.

1988 Eric Kronk has grown his financial services practice to one paralegal, two associates, and an administrative assistant.

Kronk Financial Services specializes in structured settlements, estate planning, and executive benefit planning. See Kronkfinancialservices.com for details. As of mid-February, Eric was still preoccupied with skiing Vermont’s best alpine glades and back country powder runs.

1989 REUNION SEPTEMBER 2009 Peter Van Tuyn is practicing environmental law from his home base in Anchorage.

He represents conservation groups, Alaska Native tribes and villages, and community groups on environmental issues in Alaska and the western Pacific. During the recent presidential election, he was a news media favorite for commentary on Sarah Palin’s energy and environmental policy. His wife and law partner, Ilona Bessenyey, focuses her practice on elder law. She also became quite involved in the recent election, having seen up close how the state of Alaska treats families, women, children, and the elderly. Peter says “Ilona and Palin certainly don’t share the same views on many issues, and Ilona wanted to make it clear that Palin did not speak for all the women 36 loquitur

Peter Van Tuyn’s ’89 and Ilona Bessenyey’s ’89 daughters and friend at “She Doesn’t Speak for Me” rally in Anchorage of Alaska.” Ilona coorganized the “She Doesn’t Speak for Me” rally in Anchorage, the first anti-Palin rally in the country, and one that received a lot of local and national media attention. Peter and Ilona’s girls (ages 8 and 12) were the real stars, though, as their signs made the Washington Post and USA Today, and their pictures at the rally were circulated far and wide on the web.

1990 Lynn and David Abbott are alive and well and living in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. They have two daughters—Hannah (14) and Emily (11). Both are soccer fiends, playing year-round for premier clubs, school, and the Olympic Development Program. Dave has been at the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education since late 2001.

He is currently serving as the deputy commissioner and general counsel.

Brad Atwood reports: “The more things change, the more they stay the same. I’m working in private practice at a law firm in Hanover, New Hampshire

(Clauson Atwood & Spaneas), where I focus on real-estate–related matters (commercial and residential transactions, zoning and planning, litigation, etc.). I live with my wife, Lorraine, and four kids about two miles down Broad Brook Road from where we lived while in law school.

It is the old Maplevale Farm on Broad Brook. We raise a small herd of Scottish Highland cattle there. Lorraine is the vice president of finance and administration at VLS, so needless to say, I stay pretty current on law school activities. For those of you who haven’t been back, try to make a point of it. The changes will just blow you away, but (except for the coddled and pampered crop of current young whippersnapper students—not the tough, hardy breed from back in our day) it is still the same comfortable and friendly place filled with many of the same professors.

I am still taken aback by the beauty of the place even though I drive by it almost every day.

“I was elected to the Sharon select board last March; I’m also serving on the Sharon Academy board of trustees (along with Professor Peter Teachout).

We are good friends with Daphne Moritz, Kathleen London, and Deb Leahy from our class, who all stayed in the immediate area. David Mears ’91 is a professor at VLS. It seems like yesterday that he, Tim Fetterly, Dave Graves, and I were sneaking off to fish before and after classes. It seems even harder to believe, but our oldest son, Caleb (who was born days after I took the Vermont bar) is now a freshman at the University of Vermont. We also have two daughters at the Sharon Academy high school, Abra (17) and Caroline (14), as well as a 10-year-old boy in fifth grade at Sharon Elementary. Please look us up the next time any of you visits the greater SoRo area (which basically encompasses the whole state).”

Gianetta Ellis MSL is an environmental professional focusing on environmental education, art, and writing. Her website, www.gianettaellis.com, showcases her work

Mark Washburn

Cathryn “Cappy” Nunlist ’90 Learning by Doing in the GPP Lex Pro Urbe et Orbe? VLS Professor Cathryn “Cappy” Nunlist has the Urbe well covered. Her law ambitions were nurtured while working at her father’s general practice office, about an hour south of the Hanover, New Hampshire, offices of Stebbins, Bradley, Harvey, Miller, & Brooks where she practices now. An interest in learning by doing drove her to apply to the General Practice Program (GPP) in the fall of 1988, the first year this unique four-semester program was offered. In 2000, she accepted the position of assis-

tant director and began teaching two GPP courses. She is delighted to offer to a new generation of students the same “handson” experience she had.

Maintaining what she describes as a “close to full-time practice” in family and education law as well as a VLS faculty position sounds like a balancing act, but Cappy’s had experience: the youngest of her three children was in kindergarten when she entered law school in 1987. “I bypassed the angst a lot of law students seem to have,” she recalls. “I didn’t have

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Class Notes

time for angst!” Such “think on your feet” flexibility is important for lawyers, she feels, as is a sense of perspective. “Practicing law means resolving problems on a principled basis, and that is a useful skill in many areas of life.”

The GPP excels in giving students the tools with which to resolve those problems. Unlike practice programs that rely on whatever cases might present at a clinic, the GPP simulates legal problems and can be tailored to cover important hands-on skills. Students learn to interview, write complaints, and draft contracts and wills, and engage in other exercises designed to put theory into practice.

“Very few cases wind up being fully litigated today,” Cappy says, citing the cost in both time and money. “And many transactions don’t involve litigation. Law school generally gives you the blocks of knowledge but not how to use them,” which is where the GPP comes in. As part of the program, each student is also assigned a mentor, a practicing lawyer with whom to attend court hearings or other legal activities outside the classroom. The result of GPP participation, Cappy hopes, is less “combat” litigation and better problem-solving.

“We train our students to avoid problems by being more careful with their contracts and advising clients earlier on potential conflicts,” she says. “It’s a much more satisfying way to practice.” And it’s a satisfying way to learn. The GPP has just expanded its reach from 16 to 24 students from each of the second and third years, while keeping each class size small and responsive.

As for flexibility, Cappy and her husband, a family doctor in White River Junction, have a bit more of it lately. “The kids are off, we’ve paid for their college,” she notes, and that leaves more opportunity for skiing, biking, tennis, and the occasional trip to trek in the Himalayas and hike the trail to Machu Picchu.

spring 2009 37

Class Notes

through stewARTship studios, “Incorporating Art to Stewardship.”

Stephen Mackenzie is back in fulltime international development work, working for USAID in Erbil, Iraq, since early November. He is an advisor to the Kurdish Assembly, and expects to be there until the end of 2009. He spent several weeks in Afghanistan earlier in the year as well. He is involved in some collaborations with Frank Ramaizel ’91, and has recently discovered Facebook as a resource for staying in touch. Steve reports that “Erbil is a really nice city, and the Kurds are extremely happy with the U.S. presence. I have learned so much since arriving here and spending two months in Baghdad before heading to the relative quiet of Kurdistan. Virtually everything I thought about Iraq, the war, and U.S. policy has been turned on its head! I am writing soft commentary for various publications and papers, mainly discussing life in the region.”

Chris Rhodes and his wife, Sheila Harrington, moved their law practice to East Greenwich, Rhode Island, as they purchased a building and went through the renovation process with it. Chris invites anyone visiting Rhode Island to give him a call.

Tammara Van Ryn MSL, executive director of Land Trust Accreditation Commission in Saratoga Springs, New York, is pleased to announce that over 50 land trusts have now reached the milestone of being awarded accreditation.

1991 Marilyn Bartlett became the dean of the College of Education at Texas A&M University Kingsville last July. This university was chartered as the South Texas State Teachers College in 1917; the College of Education has been the cornerstone of the university since its inception. The College of Education prepares approximately 1,800 school teachers, school administra38 loquitur

tors, counselors, and health professionals in four major undergraduate areas, 10 masters degree programs and two doctoral programs, including the first doctoral program in bilingual education in the U.S. They have 35 faculty, all of whom have doctorates, and are in the process of hiring 10 additional faculty for fall ’09.

many research and development fields, from cryocoolers for space exploration to biomedical devices and applications.

Sheryl says “My work is very enjoyable and exposes me to a lot of diverse subject matter. Specific areas involve contract law and negotiation, intellectual property, export control, and corporate risk management.”

1992

1994

Barbara Blackman is now a partner with Lynn, Lynn & Blackman PC in Burlington, Vermont. She and her husband, Davis Buckley ’91, live in East Montpelier with their two kids, Jack (12) and Kate (7).

They are avid hockey parents during the winter months. In the summer, they live outdoors as much as possible—Barbara gardens while Davis alternately curses and admires his field tractor.

Braving steep hills, rain storms, thunder, and lightning, on September 26–27, 2008, three VLS alumni—Fred Zeytoonjian, Chris Lynch, and Joanne (Loercher) Jordan ’90—participated in the Washington, D.C. Ragnar Relay, a 183-mile 12-member team race from Cumberland, Maryland, to Washington, D.C. Their team, the “Over the Hills,” placed first in the 40-and-over division in 28 hours, 42 minutes, and 52 seconds.

1993 Sheryl (Botnick) Belanger JD’93, MSEL’96 was married to David G. Belanger on October 9, 2005. They live in the Upper Valley in Enfield, New Hampshire. Dave is a therapist. Sheryl has been employed as the contracts manager at Creare in Hanover, New Hampshire, since September, 2004. Creare is an engineering research and development firm that does a lot of work for Department of Defense, NASA, National Institutes of Health, and other government agencies, as well as work for industrial clients. Their work covers

REUNION SEPTEMBER 2009 Joel Faxon practices law at the Stratton Faxon Law Firm in New Haven, Connecticut. Joel handles catastrophic personal injury, medical malpractice, sex abuse, and mass action cases, including pharmaceutical litigation. Stratton Faxon achieved the highest personal injury verdict in the history of the Connecticut Federal District Court, recovering $26.3 million for a paraplegic teamster, as well as the highest individual settlement ever achieved for a victim of clergy abuse in Connecticut. The firm is presently lead counsel in a sexual abuse mass action against the St. Francis Hospital in Hartford involving over 120 cases of sexual assault by the hospital’s former chief of endocrinology. The firm is heavily involved in community sponsorships and has pledged $250,000 to support legal aid in Connecticut, as well as sponsoring many regional road races including the Stratton Faxon New Haven Road Race. Any VLS student or alum is invited to participate in the Stratton Faxon race series by emailing Joel at jfaxon@strattonfaxon.com. Joel practices law in Vermont, Connecticut, and New York, and currently resides in Newtown, Connecticut with his wife, Carolyn, and their three children.

The Board of Directors of the Northeast Utilities (NU) Foundation announced the election of Patricia McCullough as the foundation’s new president and executive director. As president, McCullough will oversee a foundation energized by a $25 million endowment from NU, resulting

Class Notes

1995 While continuing to practice in Brattleboro, Vermont, Samuel Hunt Angell has followed Angela Prodan ’94 from Fitts, Olson & Giddings PLC to Gale, Corum, Mabie, Cook & Prodan, where he is concentrating in both civil and criminal litigation in all courts. Despite living in Vermont in hopes of raising his children in a rural setting removed from the “mall economy,” Sam shares that “Paxton (9) and Julia (7) are all about ‘Hannah Montana’ and the rest of it, although in truth they are just as much into being outside skiing and doing everything else it is that kids do.”

Kurt Schaefer won his Missouri State Senate race in November and was sworn in as a state senator on January 7. Among other committee assignments, he has been appointed vice-chair of the Senate Commerce, Energy, and Environment Com-

mittee. In addition to his Senate responsibilities, he will remain a partner with the national firm of Lathrop & Gage LLP.

1996 Gregory Cunningham MSEL has joined the Conservation Law Foundation’s Maine Advocacy Center as a senior staff attorney. Cunningham joins CLF, New England’s leading environmental group, after 10 years at Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson, where he helped develop the environmental practice group representing a broad range of governmental, corporate, and citizen groups.

Tricia Dewey and Eric Hudson ’98 welcomed John Hudson into their family on February 2, 2009. John has a big sister, Helen (7), and a big brother, Joe (6). Tricia and Eric live in Memphis, Tennessee. Eric is a partner at Butler Snow. Give them a call if you find yourself in the mid-South.

In December 2008, Mark Sciarrotta left the Environmental Division of the Vermont Attorney General’s Office to take a position as senior counsel at the Vermont Electric Power Company. He is currently

Send us your notes at alumni@vermontlaw.edu

Kathleen Dooher

from the sale of its competitive powergeneration assets. With the endowment, the foundation refocused its giving efforts with more targeted, substantial investments to effectively address key challenges in three areas: the regional economy, education, and environmental leadership and stewardship.

Virginie-Alvine Perrette reports: “Ten years ago I stopped being a lawyer and became a documentary filmmaker.

I started a production company, 2 Spot Digital, making short documentaries for nonprofits. I also began a long journey of making my own documentary film. I finished it last year and it’s been screening throughout the United States. The film, Twilight Becomes Night, examines the widespread closing of neighborhood stores in New York City and the devastating impact this has on individuals and communities. You can view clips at www.

TwilightBecomesNight.com. It’s been a good career change for me, and the legal background definitely stays useful!”

enjoying his tenure as president of the VLS Alumni Association and invites his classmates and fellow alums to contact him with questions or input. He is living in the hamlet of Montpelier with his lovely wife, Jennifer, their two kids, Cheyenne (13) and River (4), and their dog, Stanley Cup. He enjoys regularly seeing a number of his classmates successfully practicing law in Montpelier and Burlington.

Caryn Waxman has been named cochair of the Downs Rachlin Martin Family Law Group in Burlington, Vermont. She has concentrated in all aspects of family law matters in Vermont for the past 12 years and has extensive experience with complex matrimonial actions involving high asset and high conflict divorce clients. An experienced litigator, Waxman focuses her work on reducing conflict and creating long-term sustainable solutions for divorcing families. She is a frequent lecturer on all aspects of family law.

1998 Michael Formica was named chief environmental counsel for the National Pork Producers Council and has been appointed to EPA’s Clean Air Act Advisory Committee and as cochair of the American Bar Associations Environmental Litigation Subcommittee on Agriculture.

Laurice Jones is pleased to announce the birth of her son, Joshua Laurence HawesJones, born on September 28, 2008.

Jeff Qureshi and his wife, Sarah, had twins in March: Jeffrey Zafar Qureshi II and Eleanor Lee Qureshi.

1999 REUNION SEPTEMBER 2009 Chuck Conroy left the corporate world in September 2006 to practice immigration law at a nonprofit in Orlando, Florida. He is now representing refugees spring 2009 39

Class Notes

seeking asylum from persecution in their home country, undocumented children who have been abused or abandoned, and undocumented victims of violent crimes and human trafficking. He finds it to be very rewarding work. In his spare time he is also an adjunct professor of law at Barry University Law School. Chuck says, “If anybody wants to get in touch, I’m on Facebook. Hope everyone is doing well.

Peace and love.”

After seven years at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP in Manhattan, Joy Kanwar decided to try something new. She began teaching legal writing at Brooklyn Law School in the fall of 2008.

This semester she is teaching International Moot Court, and is looking forward to seeing her classmates at this year’s reunion.

Greg and Kirstin (Rohrer) McPolin, along with Emma (5) and Manuel (3), welcomed Luna Jane on October 29, 2008.

Ellen Swain Veen’s play, Jailhouse Conversion, about a lawyer whose client persuades her she’s a hostage in the jail cell, won best play in the Fringe of Marin Festival in San Rafael, California, and had a five-day run in downtown San Francisco in March. Ellen relocated to the Bay Area in 2007 and says she “took great delight in jettisoning my thickest winter coat from my Vermont days.”

Jane Woldow and Kurt Kuehl are the proud parents of a 6 lb., 9 oz. baby girl, Zoe, born on February 9, 2009.

2000 Kim Bryant moved back to Vermont in November. She is living in Burlington and works as the environmental coordinator for Goodrich in Vergennes, Vermont.

Eric Collins is currently a partner at Sullivan and Collins, a five-attorney firm in Woburn, Massachusetts, that focuses on insurance-defense litigation. His practice areas include the defense of product liability claims, toxic tort claims, general liability claims, motor vehicle tort claims, 40 loquitur

employment claims, and bad faith claims brought directly against insurance companies. On a personal note, Eric reports that “in 2006 I married my lovely wife, Julie.”

He is still an avid fisherman and is often accompanied by Julie on fishing trips.

Eric N. Columber is now a partner in the law firm of Roy, Beardsley, Williams & Granger LLC, a general practice firm in Ellsworth, Maine. He and his family reside in Sedgwick, Maine.

Michael Hartman MSEL recently took an associate position with Squire, Sanders & Dempsey’s New York office in the maritime and energy practice section.

Katherine (Inglis) Joyce MSEL continues to practice environmental and energy law in Portland, Maine, at Bernstein Shur.

She lives in Scarborough, Maine with her two young sons, Aidan and Collin.

Alexis Levitt just opened a new office in Hingham, Massachusetts. She is still practicing elder law, disability law, and estate planning. Her website is www.alexislevitt. com. Alexis reports that she and husband Rich Levitt ’99 are enjoying life with their four-year-old girl and toddler boy.

Todd Mikolop has recently returned to Washington, D.C. He left the U.S. Coast Guard after eight years of active duty and is now a trial attorney in the Environmental Crimes Section at the U.S. Department of Justice. His nationwide practice includes the investigation and prosecution of violations of federal criminal pollution, wildlife, and fisheries laws, such as the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Lacey Act, and Endangered Species Act.

2001 Lila Akrad has accepted the position of Intellectual Property Counsel at Pioneer Hi-Bred, International Inc., a DuPont Company. She comes to Pioneer from the Poet group of companies (Poet LLC, Poet Nutrition, Poet Research, Poet Design & Construction, Poet Plant Management, and Dakota Gold Research Association),

one of the largest ethanol producers in the world. At Poet she served as lead IP counsel and was responsible for managing Poet’s IP portfolio, licensing activities, and business/patent strategies. Lila also continues to function as a board member of the William L. Brown Center for Plant Genetic Resources, and has done so since 2001. Lila previously served as a technician in Pioneer’s microbial genetics lab and as one of Pioneer’s outside attorneys at the firm of McKee, Voorhees & Sease.

Fred Breedlove and Jessica Mills Breedlove had a beautiful baby girl October 3, 2008, Violet Boston Breedlove.

Emily Epperson is now employed as in-house counsel with Red Rock Energy Partners Ltd. Andrew Griffith sends his greetings from Pakistan. In 2002 he joined the U.S. Foreign Service as a special agent in the Diplomatic Security Service and says that he has “enjoyed the vast opportunities to travel and serve my country.” Since 2002, he has been deployed to Nairobi, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, London, and New Delhi.

His past assignments have included the Protective Intelligence Investigations Division and the Office of Computer Security. He is presently serving as an assistant regional security officer at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. Now in his 16th month of a “danger/separation” posting, he is looking forward to returning to his family in August 2009, when he will be assigned to Washington, D.C., in the Office of Protection, Protective Liaison Division, working to ensure the safety of the foreign diplomatic corps. Andrew has continued his educational endeavors, graduating in June 2008 from Norwich University with an MBA. He says, “It was great getting back to Vermont over the required residency and visiting VLS. The changes at VLS are amazing, while it remains a truly unique institution.”

Andrew’s twins, Edward and Alexandria, are now five and attending pre-school in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, where they eagerly tell everyone that dad is off

Class Notes

Andrew Griffith ’01 was awarded a Meritorious Honor award by the Ambassador Ann W. Patterson in a January 2009 U.S. Embassy Islamabad Award Ceremony.

Griffith’s twins, Edward and Alexandria, with dog, Alli, and Santa in “Lamabad” doing cool stuff. Andrew’s wife, Jennifer, is a sophomore at Shepherd University, where she is undertaking the four-year nursing program.

Alexander Lee is chair of the Merrimack County Democrats and is still running Project Laundry List, which appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for the second time.

As director of publishing at the Illinois

Institute for Continuing Legal Education, Megan Moore has directed the publication of Military Service and the Law 2009 Edition, in collaboration with the Veterans Legal Support Center and Clinic at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. This publication is believed to be the first comprehensive resource in the country designed to assist attorneys, not-forprofits, service organizations, and others in representing and advocating for the rights and benefits of veterans and active duty military personnel. This publication also represents the first attempt by IICLE Press to publish a book of national interest. The Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education is working with organizations in other states outside of Illinois to create state-specific supplements to accompany the book. More information about the book is available at www.iicle.com.

Yates Oppermann asks, “Five years ago, did you think you would be where you are now? Transportation was certainly never on my radar, nor was half the stuff I now work on. I am an environmental planner for the Colorado Department of Transportation. In my role I wear a dozen hats or more, including section 4(f) statewide specialist and program manager, environmental training coordinator, public participation expert, NEPA expert, and sustainability malcontent. I have had the good pleasure to work with several national organizations and groups on transportation and environmental issues. I’m on the board of the National Association of Environmental Professionals as the representative from my local chapter, and a member of the Transportation Working Group. It’s been nearly three years now since Nicole and I added Auden to our family. It’s been a lot of fun. He’s full of insight and goodwill, and a general blast to have around.

We bought a house, not far from our old condo, and with it, of course, has come an ever-expanding list of chores and projects.

We’re still awaiting visits from all our old friends. Come say hello, and fall in love with Denver, the city that everyone agrees

Send us your notes at alumni@vermontlaw.edu

they want to live in.

Carolyn Ross and David Adelman are proud to announce the arrival of Alana Janis Adelman on July 31, 2008.

Donald Lee Smith has been elected a shareholder of the Devine Millimet law firm. He is a member of the firm’s litigation department, representing businesses and individuals in a variety of litigation matters in state and federal court, including intellectual property (trademark, patent, copyright, and trade secret), employment, contract, property, and insurance-coverage litigation. Donald also maintains a busy appellate practice and has briefed and/or argued numerous cases in the New Hampshire Supreme Court and the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

2002 Shannon Nutt Bodolay recently accepted a job as an assistant borough attorney with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough in Palmer, Alaska.

Cathy Richmond became a director and shareholder of Stebbins Bradley Harvey Miller & Brooks PA as of January 1, 2009. She concentrates on estate planning, trust and estate administration, and related real estate work in New Hampshire and Vermont. She has worked for Stebbins since January 2002, when she interned for them during her last semester at VLS. She joined them as an associate in the fall of 2002. Cathy reports that her “family is fine. Husband Tom is doing well and our two boys at 21 and 17 are much taller than I am now.”

Kevin Volz joined his practice with Eugene Rakow this past year. The Rutland, Vermont firm focuses on family law, criminal law, and civil litigation.

2003 Ian Bartrum is the Irving Ribicoff Fellow in Law at Yale Law School, where he is spring 2009 41

Class Notes

Captain Shelly S. McNulty ’03, 1 SOW/JA, Hurlburt Field, FL teaching an establishment clause seminar.

In August, he will be joining the faculty of Drake Law School to teach in their Constitutional Law Center.

After serving as the media relations manager for Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources for the last two years, Olivia Campbell MSEL recently became the department’s legislative liaison to the Maryland General Assembly.

Diana Dascalu and Brian Joffe welcomed Noah Michael Joffe to the world on August 6, 2008, at 10:50 am. Noah weighed in at 6 lb., 3 oz., and 21" long at birth. Everyone is healthy and happy.

Jamie Ewing LLM is back home in Arkansas, working as a staff attorney for the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. He focuses mostly on water issues and loves it.

Aaron Lax began working as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Solicitor, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., last June. He works in the Division of Mineral Resources and concentrates on ocean and coastal law, energy law, and federal grant law matters. He and his wife, Rosario, celebrated the birth of their son, Joaquin Aaron Lax, on Septem42 loquitur

ber 18, 2008. They reside in Alexandria, Virginia.

Shelly (Stokes) McNulty, a captain in the Air Force, was deployed to Iraq in 2008 to provide counsel and advocacy for Special Forces operations. Guiding four attorneys and six paralegals, Shelly and her team worked closely with units engaged in combat operations across Iraq, reviewing operations daily for compliance with applicable rules of engagement and laws of armed conflict and advising Special Forces teams on escalation of force procedures.

She also reviewed over 150 humanitarian and reconstruction projects in Iraqi communities. Capt. McNulty noted, “These projects had enormous impacts on the local people and communities, and, in turn, on our mission and forces in the field.” Major Daniel Tanabe ’95 was her boss through the deployment; he was the Staff Judge Advocate and Shelly was the Deputy Staff Judge Advocate to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force. Shelly says “It was a VLS reunion in the desert. We kept a picture of VLS taped to our office door!”

Alex Northern is a magistrate in the 5th Judicial Circuit of Maryland.

Karen Silverstrim opened her own law firm in July 2008 and had a very successful open house in September. Karen’s practice consists of municipal, estates, family, and general civil law. Karen can be reached

Helen Maya Sluka through her website: www.silverstrimlaw. com.

Justin ’05 and Boolie Sluka welcomed their second child in July. Helen Maya Sluka was born Saturday, July 26, at 12:19 am. She was 17.5" and weighed in at 6 lb., 9 oz.

Melissa Zaineb reports that “after five years of staying home with our two wonderful boys, Hayden (5) and London (3), I am happy to announce that I took and passed the Washington state bar in February 2008, and in September 2008 I accepted a position as in-house counsel for NoteWorld LLC, a company with headquarters in Tacoma. NoteWorld is the nation’s largest servicer of seller-finance loans and personal escrow services, and is a nationwide seller finance note buyer.

My husband, Richard, and I will also celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary this March.”

2004 REUNION SEPTEMBER 2009

Alex Northern ’03 and friend

Chris Hall and his wife, Jenny, welcomed Reid Christopher Hall into the world on January 20, 2009, in Pittsburgh. Reid weighed in at 8 lb. and measured 21¼" long!

Spencer Hanes reports that it has been a year of change. He and Zoe JD/MSEL’06 recently made Charlotte, North Carolina

Class Notes

ber 24, 2008. She weighed 8 lb., 5 oz. and was 21" long. Emily reports that “she is a joyful little baby and is charming her whole family, including her big brother, Benjamin.” Emily is on maternity leave, but plans to return to work as a staff attorney at the Vermont Supreme Court.

2005 Reid Christopher Hall home. Zoe has started a renewable energy practice at Blanco Tackabery, where she represents developers in North Carolina.

Spencer is working for Duke Energy in the Renewable Energy and Carbon Strategy Group, where he focuses on renewable energy projects in the Carolinas. While working at Duke Energy, he also worked toward his MBA on the weekends in Winston-Salem. In January he graduated from the Wake Forest University Executive MBA program and is enjoying utilizing his law and master degrees in the energy field. He and Zoe look forward to returning to Vermont this fall for the Class of 2004’s five-year reunion. Spencer says, “I look forward to catching up with so many friends I have lost touch with!”

Pete Miller MSEL, VLS director of media relations 1998–2007, reports that he is now managing web content at New England Law, Boston. Pete says “the office is downtown, not far from Chinatown, so if you’re in town please look me up and we’ll do lunch.”

Andrew “Dustin” Taylor has joined the law firm of Bell, Davis & Pitt as an associate attorney in the firm’s Charlotte office. Dustin’s practice is focused on civil litigation. Previously he was law clerk to Chief Justice Sarah Parker, Supreme Court of North Carolina, and law clerk to Federal Magistrate Judge David C. Keesler, U.S. District Court, Western District of North Carolina.

Mike and Emily Wetherell had a baby girl, Anna Elizabeth Wetherell, on Octo-

Lee Knight Caffery and her partner, Dana Draa, proudly welcomed their son, Miller Murphy Caffery-Draa, into the world on November 30, 2008. He weighed 6 lb., 15 oz. and was 19¾" long.

Jerry Edwards was elected to serve as the 2009 president of the Young Lawyers Section of the Shreveport Bar Association.

Jerry is an associate at Blanchard, Walker, O’Quin & Roberts PLC in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Maria Gomez married her longtime boyfriend, Bjørn Bøe, in February 2007 in Miami. Maria and her husband are living in Arlington, Virginia, where she

Miller Murphy Caffery-Draa with his parents, Lee Knight Caffery ’05 and Dana Draa

Send us your notes at alumni@vermontlaw.edu

Maria Gomez ’05 and husband, Bjørn, attended the January 20 inauguration ceremony in Washington, D.C. is teaching environmental law for a PhD/ master’s program at George Mason University. Like so many other VLS alumni, Maria attended the recent presidential inauguration and was “blown away by the energy and, dare I say it, hope that was everywhere.”

Zachary Griefen joined the Montpelier, Vermont, firm of Cheney, Brock & Saudek PC (cbs-law.com) as associate counsel in September 2007. Prior to joining the firm, he served as the senior judicial law clerk for the Honorable Thomas Durkin and the Honorable Merideth Wright at the Vermont Environmental Court. Zak is a member of the Vermont and American bar associations and is admitted to practice law in Vermont and Massachusetts. Zak is an avid angler and is particularly interested in protecting healthy streams and promoting sustainable land use. He lives with his wife, Amé, and their two children in Montpelier.

Kate Nedelman Herbst and Peter Herbst have moved to Braintree, Massachusetts, Kate’s hometown. Kate is an assistant district attorney in the Norfolk County District Courts. Peter is an associate with Baker, Braverman & Barbadoro in Braintree, concentrating in estate planning, real estate, and land use law.

Cielo Marie (“Sky”) Mendoza and Richard Edward (“Dickey”) McCormick announce their marriage and celebration of love, which occurred on July 4, 2008, spring 2009 43

Jamar ’05 and Kija Kummer MSEL’03 Brown in Geneva, Switzerland

Jamar E. Brown ’05 International Arbitration Geneva-Style Jamar Brown modestly admits he’s “adaptable.” “Put me anywhere, and I’ll survive,” he says. “Thrive” is more like it. When he first crossed the bridge into South Royalton, despite time spent in Vermont the Manhattan native was shocked at the town’s size (or lack of it). But in no time he was hiking, snowboarding, and jumping off trestle bridges with his VLS classmates.

Pre-VLS, he worked on the streets of Newark, New Jersey, as a project manager for the nation’s largest community development group, New Community Corporation. “We opened a K–8 elementary charter school, developed youth programs, built affordable housing, and retooled welfare-to-work programs.” It was work he thought he’d resume after law school, he explains by phone from his office in Geneva, Switzerland.

44 loquitur

Now an associate at Lenz & Staehelin, Switzerland’s largest business law firm, he’s part of an international commercial arbitration team handling joint venture, licensing, and general contract law disputes. Although 85 percent of his case work is done in English, reflecting the international nature of the disputes he handles, daily life at the firm, and in town, goes on in French. “I didn’t speak a word of French before coming here, but it’s coming along quite well,” he says. “Learning another language is a challenge, but also a lot of fun.”

Jamar and his wife, Kija Kummer Brown MSEL’03, did a lot of traveling before settling in Geneva, which her dual Swiss/U.S. citizenship facilitated. Kija works for the Energy and Climate Focus Area at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a global associ-

ation of 200 multinational companies trying to balance development and environment. Geneva, which Jamar describes as “a big village,” has much to offer, including quick access to the Alps and a highly diverse population. “About 30 percent of Geneva residents are expatriates, largely due to the international organizations based here,” he explains. “When we get together with friends, it’s as diverse as the U.N.” His international arbitration group also offers a creative mix: “My colleagues are two Italian lawyers and a German lawyer, and we’re led by a Swiss partner,” he says, and laughs. “It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it has real benefits. We each have a slightly different approach to problems, we’re great friends, and our conversations are really stimulating.” Their work might entail arbitration between an Italian company and an Iranian one, or a French company and a Romanian one.

For Jamar, the blend of traditions brought to international arbitration adds considerable interest. “International arbitration requires a little more flexibility, and you see a convergence of different legal traditions coming together in a single sophisticated legal process,” he says. “It involves aspects of what we associate with both common and civil law legal systems. These different approaches have contributed to a unique, popular and well-established dispute resolution mechanism.”

Even from another continent, Jamar still thinks back fondly on his VLS days, he says. “Extraordinary people work there and are attracted to go to school there.

You have great professors whose enthusiasm for their fields and for teaching make it difficult for students to resist giving their best.” He notes as an example Professor Teachout’s two visits to his and Kija’s home. “We had a blast!” he recalls. “And how often do you hear people say that about hosting their Con Law professor?”

Class Notes

and other VLS alumni in attendance were Brian Alexander, Jamie Bush, Jenny Gray, Cristina Lopez, Meagan Munsey, Rowan Seidel, David Singer, and Kelly Smith Singer. Sarah is employed as Pacific Counsel for Oceana, an ocean conservation organization, where she focuses on federal and state fisheries management, endangered species, and climate change issues.

Zak Griefen ’05 heads to N.H. to volunteer as a legal observer for the Obama campaign on November 3, 2008

Sarah Winter ’05 marries Christopher Whelan in northern Vermont. Both the bride and groom currently practice law in Vermont and can be seen out playing music with their bands.

Evan Mulholland LLM has been appointed an assistant attorney general in the Environmental Bureau at the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office.

Sarah Winter and Christopher Whelan were married on October 3, 2008, at the View Point Inn near Portland, Oregon.

Annelisa Smith was the maid of honor

2006

Charlotte Duncan and her big brother, Hunter

Christopher Ackerman has joined the firm of Dilworth Paxson LLP in the Neptune, New Jersey, office as an associate in the Government Affairs Group. He was previously an associate at Sokol, Behot & Fiorenzo. With an extensive background in environmental law, Chris focuses his practice on municipal and land use law. He also has a great deal of experience in issues surrounding green building and sustainability. Ackerman was the first New Jersey attorney to obtain his accreditation as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, Accredited Professional (LEED AP). A LEED AP demonstrates a comprehensive understanding of green building practices and principals.

Jarrett Duncan, his wife Elizabeth, and son Hunter (3), welcomed Charlotte Hunter into the world on October 16, 2008, weighing in at 8 lb., 11 oz.

Adrienne Gilman has joined McAngus Goudelock & Courie in their Charlotte, North Carolina, office as an associate. Her practice focuses on workers’ compensation law. She is a member of the North Carolina Bar Association, where she serves on the mentorship committee of the Young Lawyers Division.

Somer Goulet MSEL has been working for Boeing Commercial Airplanes in Auburn, Washington, as an environmental engineer for the last nine months. She moved back to her home state of Washington after a couple of years in sunny California as an environmental planner

for Aspen Environmental Group. At Boeing, her primary duties include acting as the emergency response coordinator, managing the air operating permit, and streamlining the tanks and sumps program. In addition, she has taken on the task of enhancing communications on environmental topics throughout the site.

And she’s still traveling around the world on her days off.

William Gray Hicks was born on January 26, 2008. He weighed 2 lb., 7 oz. His parents, Nicole and Mark Hicks, brought him home on February 11, 2009. Mark writes, “We’ve had an outpouring of love,

Send us your notes at alumni@vermontlaw.edu

Christopher Mathias ’07 and Katie Rebholz spring 2009 45

Class Notes

support, and prayers from so many of my VLS classmates. We’d like to thank everyone. VLS is a special place.”

B. Hart Knight recently joined Miller & Martin PLLC, in Nashville, Tennessee.

On December 27, 2008, Catherine “Katie” Rebholz and Christopher Mathias ’07 exercised their right to marry in a small, yet wonderful, ceremony in Vermont. Good times were had by all.

Jason Wiles, a member of the Florida Bar currently practicing as an Assistant General Counsel for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, was sworn into the Connecticut Bar on February 2, 2009.

2007 Stephen Franklin Wilson Ball Jr. and Courtney Erin Shea were married in Greenwich, Connecticut, this past January.

Ben Blank is living in Boston and works for KLD Research, a socially responsible investing research firm. He researches the environmental and social impacts of utility companies. He is also research manager of the GC100 index, a group of companies demonstrating the strongest leadership in combating climate change. Additionally, he volunteers for a nonprofit that helps to bring renewable energy and efficiency to the community level. Ben has continued to play ultimate and basketball.

Roberto Busó-Griggs and Shelby (Kammeyer) Busó ’09 are now parents of Sebastián River Busó, born on January 14, 2009.

Holly Carlson MSEL is living in the Boston area and working for an environmental consulting company involved in a wide range of permitting and regulatory efforts. She says “I try to make it up to Vermont whenever I can!”

Alicia Clark is working as a staff attorney at New Mexico Legal Aid in Silver City, New Mexico. She says, “It has its down sides (read: family law) but is gen46 loquitur

Sebastián River Busó with his mother, Shelby (Kammeyer) Busó ’09 erally satisfying, and great for litigation experience. The best part is probably my boss, Barbara, who is my best friend and the greatest mentor in the world.”

Rachel Cotrino is currently employed with a law firm in Jackson, New Jersey, near the Jersey Shore. She presently manages the firm’s matrimonial practice from client intake through trial. Rachel says, “Managing the practice is challenging but fun.”

Ellen Crivella MSEL is a scientist at CH2M Hill in Portland, Oregon. She works on permitting and regulatory compliance of wind-energy–generating facilities in the Pacific Northwest. Ellen also sits on the board of directors for the Oregon Association of Environmental Professionals.

Joe Griffo is with the Navy as a JAG attorney. Recently he flew on and off the USS Eisenhower CVN to assist with predeployment work-ups. He says it was a “cool experience landing and taking off from an aircraft carrier.”

Jo Ann Hertford continues to work for the New Hampshire Public Defend-

ers office in Keene, New Hampshire. She reports: “I enjoy the work and especially enjoy courtroom practice. There are so many social and psychiatric issues that affect my clients. The issues are much the same as those that brought patients to my medical office in the past, so this has been a natural transition for me. I have three children in college (including one in graduate school), and next year four will be!”

Louis-Charles Hevin LLM reports, “I was a French LLM student at VLS during the year 2006–07. I passed the Washington, D.C. bar exam in 2007 after I went back to France, where I was a trainee at Paul Hastings Janofsky Walker LLP in Paris. I have just passed the French bar and I am working in the Paris branch of an English law firm, Norton Rose LLP, in the capital market department. I live in Paris with my girlfriend.”

Brock Howell lives in Portland, Oregon, and is now working as a transportation and land use advocate for Environment Oregon. Previously, Brock served as the interim legal director for Futurewise in Seattle and worked on the Public Interest Network’s campaign for Barack Obama in Denver.

Since leaving VLS, Chris King clerked for the Navajo Supreme Court in the summer of 2007, graduated from the University of Arizona’s Indigenous People’s Law and Policy LLM program in May of 2008, and is now weathering the storm of employment uncertainty in Charleston, South Carolina.

Shana Loomar finished her clerkship in New Jersey on August 29 and married Ron Landmann on August 30. Sarah Miller and Emilee Drobbin ’08 were bridesmaids. Jonathan Cohen, Starla Yeh, and Jessica Werber also attended. Shana and Ron went to Bora Bora on their honeymoon, which Shana reports “was pretty awesome!” The couple relocated to Jacksonville, Florida, in October, where Ron accepted a surgical position at the Mayo Clinic. Shana is now studying for the Florida bar. One last note: “We adopted two

Class Notes

Jodin, are planning a green renovation and addition on their Arlington, Virginia home. Construction should begin in May. Jes says, “My job rocks. We won a case against Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on behalf of North Carolina. The District Court for the Western District of North Carolina ordered TVA to (finally) install modern pollution controls on their four plants that are within 100 mile radius of North Carolina. It was a nuisance suit— the first of its kind for air pollution. We’re also tracking the new Congress and climate legislation for a number of clients. I attended the inauguration on the Mall. It was cold and amazing.”

Mike Routhier coordinates the National Environmental Policy Act program for a large Army installation in Alaska, fostering compliance with a variety of federal and state environmental laws. When not fly-fishing, Mike enjoys the local skiing, prepares the occasional memo for the state district court, coaches backline for the university’s rugby team, and writes about himself in the third person to allay Greg Dorrington’s insatiable demand for Class Notes.

Jerimiah Sanders is a Presidential Management Fellow at the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Environment and Energy in Washington, D.C. He is scheduled to convert to career employee status on June 25, 2009.

Nathaniel Shoaff is an associate in the Paul Hastings’ San Francisco office. He is a member of the firm’s environmental practice group. After law school, Nathaniel married his college sweetheart, Leah.

Nathaniel and Leah enjoy living in San Francisco and spend their weekends skiing at Lake Tahoe.

Allison Smith MSEL just started a new job at Anbaric Northeast Independent Transmission Company. They are developing undersea electric transmission cables to deliver wind power to markets.

She currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts; her office is in Wakefield.

Avery Staley will serve as counsel to

Send us your notes at alumni@vermontlaw.edu

the North Carolina lieutenant governor, Walter Dalton. Avery has worked as a consultant to the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce and in positions at the Compass Group USA and the Charlotte Area Fund. He also managed Congressman Mel Watt’s 2000 reelection campaign.

Jeff Thomson has been elected as the National Lawyers Guild’s northeast regional vice president, allowing him a chair on the NLG’s national executive committee.

Becky and Steven Whitley were married in South Woodstock, Vermont, on September 22, 2007, and have since settled in Concord, New Hampshire. Steven works as an Associate at Baldwin & Callen PLLC, focusing on land use, zoning, and municipal law. Becky is a staff attorney at the Disabilities Rights Center, a nonprofit organization that advocates on behalf of individuals with both mental and physical disabilities. They also recently got a two– year-old yellow lab (read: giant puppy) that keeps them quite busy!

Lauren Whitley has been an assistant public defender in Fairfax County, Virginia, since August 2007. She now advocates primarily for juvenile clients and spends a large part of her time quietly amazed at the criminal actions she got Kathleen Dooher

cats, Lola and Phoebe.”

Liz Lucente has been living in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, Kyle Schwarting, since July 2008. Liz is an attorney at King & Spalding LLP in Atlanta. She is licensed in North Carolina and is pursuing admission to the Georgia bar this spring. Kyle works for the Buckhead RitzCarlton in the pastry department and is an avid baker and brewer in his spare time.

The couple loves the warm climate and proximity to the Appalachians but misses Vermont skiing. Their standard poodles miss frolicking in the snow but they are thankful for the copious squirrel population in the backyard. Liz and Kyle send their regards to the Class of 2007 and VLS faculty and staff.

John McGowan lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with his wife, Hana, and one-year-old son, William.

John joined the law firm of Donahue Tucker & Ciandella in September 2007, where he is part of the firm’s development, municipal, real estate, and litigation practice groups. John recently achieved certification as a LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) through U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)—the first attorney in New Hampshire to achieve this certification. In February 2008 John was honored as a pro bono “Rising Star” by the New Hampshire Bar Association.

Boe Morgan is enjoying her second year as a judicial law clerk at the Connecticut Superior Court in Hartford, Connecticut. While in Hartford, Boe says she’s “been known to cavort with the newlyweds Michele Maresca and Peter Royer, as well as Jen Murphy while she clerked at the appellate court.” After renting out their home in southern Vermont, she and her partner, Wren Gore, have relocated to the Boston area, where Boe is currently seeking a position.

Liz Mulholland is still at the New Hampshire Public Defender as a staff attorney.

Jessica (Biamonte) Olson got married last June. She has a stepson who turned 10 in February. Jessica and her husband,

spring 2009 47

Class Notes

away with herself as a teenager. She loves her job and her clients and, since January 20, 2009, her home of Washington, D.C., as well.

2008 Nesha Christian-Hendrickson is clerking for the Honorable Francis J D’Eramo at the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, St. Croix Division.

Josh Cohen has recently accepted a position at Sher Leff LLP, a San Franciscobased boutique firm that specializes in cleaning up water pollution. Their website is www.sherleff.com.

Bill Eubanks LLM has been leading a double life since leaving Vermont Law School in August to embark on his legal career. By day, Bill is an associate attorney with the Washington, D.C. public inter-

Jerry Magee ’08 above Little Blitzen Gorge in the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area est environmental law firm of Meyer Gltizenstein & Crystal, where he represents numerous conservation organizations on issues of wildlife and natural resource protection in federal district and appellate courts. By night, Eubanks writes scholarly articles that seek to further the academic

discourse on issues such as environmental justice, climate change, the public health impacts of air pollution, and U.S. agricultural policy.

After 24 years as the Bureau of Land Management Oregon-Washington planning and national environmental policy act coordinator, Jerry Magee MELP recently accepted a new position as the Bureau of Land Management OregonWashington wilderness and national landscape conservation system program manager. Jerry reports “This is an exciting time to work in these programs, which are expected to rank highly in the new administration (with statutory recognition of the National Landscape Conservation system nearing passage by Congress).” This job change completes a circle, as Jerry’s career began with conducting BLM’s first-ever wilderness inventories in the California desert from 1976 to 1978.

Joseph J. Papandrea ’77 of Port Charlotte, Florida, passed away on January 18, 2009, in Port Charlotte. Joseph had a private practice in New York City, where he lived until relocating to Port Charlotte in 2001.

He was a member of the bar associations of New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

Christopher MacIntyre Johnson ’80, of Enfield, New Hampshire, passed away on December 19, 2008, at his home. Christopher was a lifetime resident of the Enfield community.

Peter Marshall Lavigne ’84, teacher, writer, and environmental activist, died of pancreatic cancer on November 23, 2008.

Most of Pete’s work was devoted to maintaining or restoring biodiversity to the nation’s rivers. He cofounded and chaired the New England Coastal Coalition,

48 loquitur

an organization that united fishermen’s groups, government agencies, and coastal community organizations in an effort to reduce coastal pollution. In 1992, Pete moved to the Pacific Northwest. In Portland, he founded and directed the River Network, a national program for developing leadership in the river protection movement. He traveled throughout the Northwest (and to Washington, D.C.) to coordinate efforts to save the salmon, and he taught graduate courses in environmental management at Portland State College. In 2001, Pete broadened his focus by establishing the Rivers Foundation of the Americas, an organization that promotes the protection and restoration of rivers in North, Central, and South America.

During his career, Pete wrote dozens of articles that were published in environmental journals and anthologized in

environmental texts. He also coauthored Vermont Townscapes, a book about the important relationship between land use and historic building preservation.

A regular commentator on environmental issues for CNN radio, Pete described himself as “a wilderness lover and a risktaker”; his perilous kayaking and mountain climbing experiences attest to both characterizations. At the time of his death, Pete served as chair of the Environmental Studies Department at Prescott College in Prescott, Arizona, and as chair of the board of directors for a new environmental research center in Gunnison, Colorado.

Pete’s survivors include his wife, Nancy, his daughter, Rhiannon, and hundreds of friends, colleagues, and students who have been inspired by Pete’s passionate commitment to the environment.

John Sherman

In Memoriam

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spring 2009 

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