Spring 2010 Loquitur—The Alumni Magazine for Vermont Law School by Vermont Law School

SPRING 2010

Power Players in Energy Law

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Letter from Dean Jeff Shields Discovery The VLS partnership with China deepens, faculty and students reflect on what they learned at CoP15, the school sharpens its focus on jobs, and distinguished visitors from Kenya to California travel to South royalton.

Power Players in Energy Law

Faculty Highlights

Michael Dworkin, director of the institute for Energy and the Environment, believes energy policy is the most important influence on our environment. That’s why the iEE is training the energy leaders of the future.

Professor oliver Goodenough speaks about the growth of neurolaw, Michael McCann about sports law, and Michele Martinez Campbell about the transition from prosecuting cocaine cartels to teaching criminal law.

Scholarships for the Public Good (and the Good of the School) Scholarships make public service possible for promising law students like William tucker and Katie Amestoy. VLS is striving to keep pace with peer schools, using scholarships to help draw the strongest possible class.

29 © Veer Incorporated

Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment has dozens of projects under way at a given moment, such as providing research to the Vermont legislature on whether to renew its contract with a nuclear power plant, studying how laws can encourage the mass adoption of electric vehicles, and creating a legal framework for utilities to install solar panels on roofs for thousands of customers.

Class Notes We honor Board President Scott Cameron ’80 for his stellar service to VLS. read the latest from your classmates, as well as profiles of Gabor rona ’78, Edna Baugh ’83, Lyle Glowka ’92, Allison Dennis MSEL’05, and Nathaniel Shoaff ’07.

Loquitur Spring 2010 Volume 23, Number 2 President and Dean Jeff Shields Editor Carol Westberg Production Editor Jennie Clarke Contributing Editors Susan Davidson Jennifer Hayslett Contributing Writers John Cramer Diane Derby Carole Gaudet MSEL’94 Oliver Goodenough Regina Kuehnemund Meg Lundstrom Kevin Schrems ’10 Julie Sloane Special Thanks To Kim Evans Dorothy Behlen Heinrichs Mary Lou Lorenz Design Glenn Suokko, Inc. Printing Capital Offset Company, Inc. Published by Vermont Law School 164 Chelsea Street, PO Box 96 South Royalton, VT 05068 www.vermontlaw.edu

Kathleen Dooher

Send address changes to alumni@vermontlaw.edu or call 802-831-1313

Letter from Dean Jeff Shields Dear Alumni and Friends, At first glance, the features on scholarships and the institute for Energy and the Environment (iEE) in this issue of Loquitur may seem unrelated. in fact, they are inextricably interwoven in terms of our efforts to draw the very best students to Vermont Law School. Scholarship aid has become crucial to schools competing for students who have high LSAt scores and grade point averages as well as the desire to serve the public good. our overall approach to aid includes loan repayment scholarships that assist students who go into public service work. VLS would be hard pressed to produce our extraordinary graduates without strong scholarship aid. Similarly, many of our best students are attracted by the energy instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s magnificent program, which offers the opportunity to work one on one with world-renowned professors and fellows to find critical energy solutions. The iEE has been a bridge for a large number of our students to spectacular jobs at such places as the Federal Energy regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency. itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s now easier to keep up with the latest on these programs and other exciting developments at VLS through news and new highlights on faculty, students, and alumni available at www.vermontlaw.edu. Warmest regards,

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

Discovery China Visit Deepens Partnership “Our China program has achieved a very high level of penetration with the top academic, government, and NGO leaders working on environmental and energy issues in China,” said President and Dean Jeff Shields, reflecting on his December visit to China and Thailand. “The opportunities for our students and the impact of our China program are extraordinary.” During his visit to Beijing, Dean Shields met with Vice President Zhu Yong of the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) and signed an agreement to create a framework for collaboration between VLS and CUPL. While in Guangzhou, Dean Shields extended an agreement with the Sun Yat-sen University Law School to expand the opportunities for VLS students and enhance training programs for Chinese faculty and students for another three years. Dean Shields also met with U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman, Guangzhou Consul General Brian Goldbeck, and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Bangkok Mission Chief Olivier Carduner. While in Bangkok, Professor Tseming Yang, director of the U.S. China Partnership for Environmental Law, gave a presentation on environmental governance challenges in China, emphasizing that climate change has become a dominant issue in U.S.-China relations. In addition, the VLS team presented a number of workshops for high-level Chinese government officials. Professor Michael Dworkin, director of the Institute for Energy and the Environment, led a workshop on electric power resource planning, wholesale electric power markets reform, and potential “smart-grid” developments at the State Electric Regulatory Commission. Professor David Mears ’91, director of the VLS Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic, moderated

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In Beijing to discuss collaboration between VLS and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Training Center were Zeng Yubai, deputy director of the Enterprise Training Department of the NDRC Training Center; Michael Dworkin, director of the VLS Institute for Energy and the Environment; Du Ping, director of the NDRC Training Center; Jeff Shields, VLS president and dean; Tseming Yang, director of the U.S.-China Partnership for Environmental Law at VLS; Siu Tip Lam, deputy director of the U.S.-China partnership; Zhang Nianyu, director of the Research and Development Department of the NDRC Training Center; and Jingjing Liu, associate director of the U.S.-China partnership.

an environmental law clinic roundtable at CUPL’s Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims with participation from practicing lawyers and faculty from CUPL, Renmin University Law School, and Beijing Normal University Law School. In October, VLS received a $3 million grant from the USAID to expand its U.S.China partnership program over the next three years. The grant, which extended a $1.8 million USAID funding agreement in 2006, enables VLS to continue helping China to strengthen enforcement of its environmental and energy laws.

VLS Dean Jeff Shields met with Zhu Yong, vice president of the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) in Beijing.

Reflections on Copenhagen Six Vermont Law School students and three faculty members traveled to Copenhagen in December to witness the international climate change negotiations at the U.N.’s 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15). The VLS group agreed that despite logistical and other challenges that marred the Copenhagen meeting, the experience provided insights to complex negotiations and the role of diplomacy and law in the process. “I don’t think there is any better learning experience than seeing things firsthand, in the context of international law,” said 3L Lillian Kortlandt. In the end, Kortlandt wrote on the VLS blog (http:// vlscopenhagen.wordpress.com) that she was leaving Copenhagen “disappointed and exhausted,” yet still feeling privileged to have witnessed the proceedings. Michael Coté, a MELP candidate, found opportunities to connect with many international organizations that are focused on helping cities work toward

(L-R, front) Stephen Porter of the Center for International Environmental Law, Jessica Scott ’10, Dustin Brucher ’10, Ashley Santner ’10; (back) Professor Laurie Beyranevand, Lillian Kortlandt ’10, Professor Teresa Clemmer, Michael Coté MELP’10, and Anna Ellis ’10

sustainable development. “I am excited by the prospects of jobs. I made a lot of contacts,” said Coté, who as an urban planner also left Copenhagen with a better understanding of the importance of crowd control. Professor Teresa Clemmer, who began planning for the Copenhagen trip last spring, said she knew there would be a strong turnout given the growing interest in climate change, yet she was still

Anna Ellis ’10 greets Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Wangari Maathai

surprised by the reality. “We were expecting crowds in the streets and congestion, but I wasn’t really expecting the conference itself to be so chaotic,” she said. Yet despite the difficulties, she said the early plenary sessions and side events provided students with a unique perspective on the international efforts. “It was really interesting to have a front-row seat to all these dramatic negotiations and activities,” said Clemmer. In the end, 3L Jessica Scott, will remember Copenhagen for both the promise and the dashed hopes of the COP15 talks. “A wonderful part of the experience for me was a sense of camaraderie and inspiration,” she said, noting the efforts of the many nongovernmental organizations that remain committed to curbing the effects of climate change. “At the same time, it can be discouraging, the feeling that certain parties don’t understand what a crisis it is.” One distinct memory will be witnessing the representatives of the tiny islands of Tuvalu make their legal arguments for demanding discussion of a binding agreement, only to have larger and stronger nations fight vehemently against such action. “Being in school to be attorneys, it’s good to see the role that legal arguments play in the process,” Scott said.

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Discovery

Interdepartmental Coordination Sharpens Career Focus

time jobs for VLS graduates. In addition to networking off campus, Stern will work with Career Services and the academic dean’s office to give students academic and practical guidance that leads to great jobs upon graduation. “VLS graduates are much better prepared than most graduates from other law schools, but it’s a tough job market,” Stern said, “so our task will be to improve our contacts with potential employers. We’ll take what Career Services is already doing to a new level with a fresher and more strategic approach.” Career Services Director Abby Armstrong said Stern’s big-picture approach will complement her staff’s “nitty-gritty, in-the-trenches” efforts to help VLS graduates secure full-time employment. “Dennis will help us to maximize our efforts,” Armstrong said. “It will be more efficient and help all the pieces of the puzzle to fit together better.”

Vermont Law School has created a new position to strengthen its job-placement efforts for graduating students and recent alumni. In January, Dennis Stern started as vice president of interdepartmental coordination after retiring the previous month as senior vice president and deputy general manager at The New York Times.

Kathleen Dooher

Using For-profit Practices to Achieve Nonprofit Goals

Dennis Stern and Abby Armstrong ’84

Stern oversees VLS job counseling, networking, and efforts to reach law firms, government agencies, nonprofit groups, and other potential employers. He also works closely with the Office for Institutional Advancement, the dean’s office, the admissions office, and the experiential programs to develop a strategy for networking with people who can provide full-

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The world’s social services network has been hard hit by the recession, and the current system for funding solutions to social problems is unsustainable, says Arthur Wood, former vice president of social financial services at Ashoka, the nonprofit organization that pioneered social entrepreneurship. Wood was a keynote speaker at the Vermont Law Review’s 10th Annual Symposium, “Corporate Creativity: The Vermont L3C and Other Developments in Social Entrepreneurship,” held at VLS on February 18 and 19. “We need to change the whole paradigm to have a social and economic impact,” Wood said. The conference explored legal structures and hybrid organizations for

achieving nonprofit goals with for-profit mechanisms, both domestically and abroad. According to VLS Professor Betsy Schmidt, “We recognized that the current binary system, which categorizes every enterprise as either for-profit or nonprofit, can restrict our abilities to bring the sectors together to solve problems. No one business form works for every situation.” The symposium brought together some of the top names in the field of social entrepreneurship. Panelists included Robert Lang, originator of the low-profit limited liability company (L3C), who discussed its history and application; Dana Brakman Reiser, a Brooklyn Law School professor who discussed legal issues arising from the creation and operation of hybrid organizations; and Stephen Lloyd, an attorney in the United Kingdom who created the Community Interest Company, which also bridges the nonprofit and for-profit worlds. In 2008, Vermont became the first state in the country to enact low-profit limited liability companies, a cross between a nonprofit organization and a for-profit corporation. L3Cs are designated by the Vermont Secretary of State as low-profit with charitable or education goals. Five states now recognize L3Cs.

Five Alumni Honored The New Hampshire Public Defender was recently honored with the Bill of Rights Award by the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union, for the quality of its work defending the rights of the poor. Contributing to the success and recognition of their program, according to Christopher Keating, the executive director of the Public Defender, were five VLS alumni. Tony Hutchins ’90, Jesse Friedman ’00, Simon Mayo ’04, Emma Sisti ’06, and Adam Hescock ’07 were an integral part of the team that earned this success.

Discovery

Civil Rights Leader Urges VLS Students to Embrace a Cause James Perkins Jr., the first black mayor of Selma, Alabama, marked the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration on January 19 by urging Vermont Law School students, faculty, and staff to dedicate themselves to a cause for social justice. “Find yourself a reason, a cause, and make a difference,” Perkins told more than 250 people in Chase Community Center. “There is a call to action in America” to combat racism, poverty, and problems in healthcare, housing, and other quality-of-life issues. Perkins cited the challenges, confusion, and conflicts that humans bring upon themselves rather than cooperating to improve their families and communities and to live in peace and prosperity.

Perkins, a Selma native, was among the first black students to enter Selma’s A.G. Parrish High School in 1969 under mandatory desegregation. Shirley Jefferson, VLS associate dean for student affairs and diversity, became a classmate of Perkins in 1971 after the school was renamed Selma High School. Perkins and Jefferson became friends and student activists during their high school years. “Who would have thought he would be elected mayor of Selma one day, and i’d become associate dean here?” Jefferson told the audience. “We are living proof you can do anything.” Dean Jeff Shields introduced Perkins, citing his “rich and proven record” in community service, government, and business, and recounting his rise to the top elected office in Selma, a symbol of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Selma’s mayor in that era was Joe Smitherman, a segregationist who served 35

The Honorable James Perkins Jr.

years despite allegations of racism, corruption, and negligence. Perkins eventually went on to unseat Smitherman as mayor in 2000 and was reelected in 2004. under Perkins’ leadership, Selma added jobs; improved public education, housing, and safety; and adopted an environmental clean-up plan.

bring the best, the brightest, and the most committed to VLS “We created the Future Environmental Business Leader Scholarship Fund to encourage and support VLS students who are motivated to make positive change in the environment through traditional business practice. You can often have a much bigger impact if you are sitting at the table.” – James Kalashian ’83 Senior Tax Counsel, General Electric – Patricia DeLuca ’84 Managing Director, GE Capital

We look forward to helping you transform your passion into an opportunity for a deserving student. To learn more, email alumni@vermontlaw.edu

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California’s Smog Czar Works to Create Sustainable Communities Mary Nichols acknowledged it took some chutzpah for her to lecture Vermonters about sprawl, pollution, and land-use planning. But Nichols, who delivered the sixth annual Norman Williams Distinguished Lecture in Land Use Planning and the Law at VLS on February 4, is at the vanguard of California’s efforts to align greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets with transportation, housing, and land-use planning processes. As chairman of the California Air Resources Board (ARB), her goal is to reshape the Golden State’s car culture, turning the most polluted state into a model for federal climate change policy. In addition to cutting emissions, California’s strategic planning approach is intended to create communities with improved public health, accessibility, and sustainability. Nichols was appointed ARB chairman in 2007, a position she also held from 1978 to 1983. Speaking to a crowd of about 200 people in the Chase Community Center,

Chairman of the California Air Resources Board Mary Nichols, the 2010 Norman Williams Distinguished Lecturer in Land Use Planning and the Law

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Nichols touted California’s efforts to improve cooperation between state and local governments. In 2008, California passed Senate Bill 375, the nation’s first law to control greenhouse gas emissions by curbing sprawl. The law includes emissionsreductions goals for which regions can plan, coordinates disjointed planning activities, and provides incentives rather than penalties for local governments and developers to follow new planned growth patterns. Nichols said SB 375 is intended to reshape California’s communities into cleaner, more sustainable, and walkable communities with alternative transportation options and increased quality of life. “Mary Nichols’ talk really helped our students to understand the innovative steps California is taking to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions through effective land-use planning,” said Professor Marc Mihaly. “California’s strategic planning approach is creating communities with better public health, accessibility, and sustainability.”

Inaugural Costle Chair Lecture Professor William Rodgers of the University of Washington School of Law and Douglas Costle Chair Visiting Professor at Vermont Law School delivered the first Costle Chair lecture on October 23 to an overflow audience in the Chase Community Center. The Douglas Costle Chair is given to an eminent visiting environmental scholar. Douglas Costle, who was in attendance, was dean of Vermont Law School from 1987 to 1991 and administrator of U.S. EPA from 1977 to 1981. Marc Mihaly, director of the Environmental Law Center, introduced Professor Rodgers, discussing the importance of his pioneering work in environmental law. Professor Rodgers is “our kind of professor,” stated Mihaly, because Rodgers “is a

University of Washington

Discovery

William Rodgers, the first Douglas Costle Chair Visiting Professor

dedicated activist who does not forget that he is also a lawyer, and he practices what he believes.” In his lecture, “The Environmental Laws of the 1970s: They Looked Good on Paper,” Professor Rodgers noted five predictable failures that may exist with the environmental laws of the 1970s: the double-edged sword—in the form of citizen suits, the Freedom of Information Act, and the invention of impact statements; unanticipated consequence, such as the strain between a successful economy and having environmental laws; complexity—citing environmental acronyms as one example; high maintenance—Rodgers believes that early environmental laws performed well because of the use of best available science, public participation, and effective judicial review; and failure of imagination, suggesting that trends in environmental science and law in the 1970s could have been foreseen. During that era, problems such as loss of fisheries and collapses in biodiversity were already rapidly occurring. Professor Rodgers taught Natural Resources Law and Natural Resources Damages at VLS during the fall 2009 semester.

John Douglas/Flying Squirrell Graphics

Takings Conference Highlights New Challenges Posed by Climate Change Nearly 200 legal scholars, lawyers, judges, and students gathered at Vermont Law School on November 6 for the 12th annual conference, “Litigating regulatory takings Challenges to Land use and Environmental regulations.” The daylong session explored legal challenges that climate change presents when private property rights conflict with public interest. “Climate change promises to bring about major changes in the physical landscape, and those changes are bound to produce property conflicts,” says Professor John Echeverria, a VLS takings expert who was responsible for bringing this year’s conference to VLS. one discussion addressed beach erosion issues related to climate change, focusing on a case before the u.S. Supreme Court, Stop the Beach Renourishment vs. Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Top experts in regulatory takings gathered at VLS in November, including Donald Kaniaru of the Kenya Environmental Tribunal.

That case pits private property owners against the state’s efforts to restore beaches that have been subject to erosion. And the legal challenges related to climate change and beachfront development rights aren’t limited to the u.S. “These issues are the same issues that we deal with,” notes tom ojienda, one of three members of the Kenyan Environmental tribunal who traveled to VLS to attend the conference. “Many of our cases involve beachfront development worth millions of dollars.” The Kenyan delegation found that the day of discussion provided very useful lessons to be applied back home.

This year’s conference, cosponsored by the VLS Land use institute, Georgetown university Law Center, Columbia Law School, and the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law (VJEL), marked the first time the prestigious conference was hosted at VLS. Kristin Hines, a third-year VLS student and editor-in-chief of VJEL, says she was impressed by the draw of top takings scholars and leading practitioners from around the country: “it was a great honor to host the conference.” For more, visit: www.vjel.org/events/ EVt10017.html

Kathleen Dooher

Student Highlights

Cara Cookson ’10

Cara Cookson ’10’s essay, “Confronting our Fear: Legislating Beyond Battered Woman Syndrome and the Law of Self-Defense,” was selected by the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence as the second place winner in their 2009 Law Student Writing Competition. Justin Brown ’09 won a national legal writing contest sponsored by the ABA Section of Public utility Law. His 2009 essay, “King Coal’s uncertain Future: An Analysis of the Growing u.S. Coal Moratorium,” took first place in the K. William Kolbe Legal Writing Competition. The Public Service Law Network awarded Schweitzer Fellow Lise Daniels ’10 honor-

able mention in their 15th annual Pro Bono Publico Award for launching the Mascoma Legal resource Center, a legal assistance clinic that offers rural, lowincome individuals legal information and advice. John Meyer ’09’s paper “using the Public trust Doctrine to Ensure the National Forests Protect the Public from Climate Change” was published in the Hastings West-Northwest Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, Volume 16, issue 1 (winter 2010). For more Student Highlights, see www. vermontlaw.edu.

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POWER PLAYERS IN ENERGY LAW

loquitur

By Julie Sloane

Photographs by Glenn Suokko

Give Michael Dworkin five minutes and he’ll have you

totally convinced that you should know more about energy law. His short argument goes like this: When we think about the environment, the single most important problem is climate change—that’s mostly about carbon. “The energy sector produced three quarters of U.S. carbon emissions, 42 percent from generating electric power and 33 percent from transportation— so cars and electric power are what matter most.” Even beyond carbon, electric power plants are the biggest source of mercury and fine particulates that end up in our lungs and the second biggest user of water after agriculture. In addition, automobiles and power plants are the biggest emitters of nitrogen dioxide. “If you care about the environment, energy policy is the most important influence,” Dworkin says. “If you care about energy policy, the environment is the most important constraint.” After a 27-year career as a utility regulator and environmental litigator, most recently as chair of the Vermont Public Service Board, Dworkin joined the VLS faculty in 2005 and established its Institute for Energy and the Environment (IEE). In just four years, the IEE has secured its reputation as a research powerhouse, with more than $1 million in commissioned research, nearly all of it forward-thinking in its emphasis on and advocacy for renewable energy and energy efficiency. The IEE’s mission is half academics, half outreach. On the academic side, Dworkin and his team have introduced a robust offering of energy law classes to VLS—one in the fall, two in the spring, and six courses in the summer. In 2007, they began offering a certificate of concentration in energy law. The other part of the institute’s mission is outreach. With roughly 15 VLS students, three senior researchers, and three full-time staff, the IEE has dozens of projects under way at a given moment, such as providing research to the Vermont legislature on whether to renew its contract with a nuclear power plant, creating a handbook for small farms to increase their energy independence, studying how laws can encourage the mass adoption of electric vehicles, and creating a legal frame-

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work for utilities to install solar panels on roofs for thousands of customers. once released, carbon lasts for a century in the atmosphere. Dworkin plans for that term too, by inspiring, training, and releasing to the job market leaders who will have an impact on energy law for the next 50 years. Training for Energy Leaders

Their official title is research Associate, but their nickname is much catchier: the energizers. Every year, these 12 to 15 JD, MELP, and LLM candidates each spend up to 20 hours a week on institute research. Joining them are two global research fellows who split their time evenly between LLM coursework and the institute, and three senior research fellows who primarily work off campus. At any given time, the iEE has two to three dozen active projects under way. roughly half are commissioned and paid for by outside clients; the other half are unpaid and done for their social or intellectual value. “As a practicing lawyer, work is driven by what clients want and what your boss wants, not necessarily what you’re interested in,” says Zhen Zhang, a current Global Energy Fellow and 2011 LLM candidate. in contrast, “There is a lot of freedom

here at the institute to pursue my own interests.” one of Zhang’s current projects is research on the smart grid, the planned modernization of the nation’s energy transmission structure that will leverage digital technology in an effort to cut costs, save energy, and increase reliability. Last october, Congress approved a $450,000 appropriation for the iEE to study legal issues surrounding the smart grid. This summer, institute researchers will put these funds to work and begin to dig into everything from privacy issues—who gets to know what time we wake up in the morning and go to bed at night?—to ways the law can encourage the adoption of new technology without compromising reliability. The iEE also provides a unique type of experiential education. “Working for the institute is like working for a highquality consulting firm,” says Dworkin. “Students learn to understand what a client wants, help a client understand what it wants, and deliver a product in a timely manner.” research Associate Patrick Joy found that the institute added a new dimension to his legal education. “After the first semester of law school, which is very intense and theoretical, the institute gave me a chance to see how the concepts i’ve been digesting play out in the real world,” he says. Joy has been working on the institute’s carbon capture and sequestration project, a three-year collaboration with Carnegie

“Our goal is to have fewer greenhouse gases in 50 years because of the work we do today, and in 100 years because of the work our students do tomorrow.”

— Michael Dworkin, Director, Institute for Energy and the Environment

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Mellon university’s Department of Engineering and Public Policy, the university of Minnesota, and the law firm Van Ness Feldman in Washington, D.C. While Carnegie Mellon scientists work on the science behind stripping carbon dioxide from the emissions generated by coal-fired power plants and storing it miles underground, iEE energizers are exploring the legal framework that would be needed. They are helping draft six briefing papers for Congress that will give legislators a blueprint for action. “Actually drafting a law is 10 times harder than understanding an existing one,” says Joy. “it’s been an eye-opening and empowering experience.” Looking at the voluminous list of current projects, it’s easy to forget that the institute is still young. “Four years ago it was just three or four of us in Michael’s office trying to figure out what we’re doing that week,” says Jack Sautter JD’08, LLM’09, now a captain in the Marine Corps and a JAG lawyer. Sautter was an iEE research Associate for two years and a 2008–09 Global Energy Fellow. “Now the institute has the top floor of Eaton House, revenue in excess of a million dollars, and a portfolio of groundbreaking research projects. it’s really amazing.” one of the institute’s earliest projects, an analysis of the ethanol industry, proved that a few students in South royalton can be powerfully prescient. Published in the Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy in 2007 when ethanol

was seen as the savior for our addiction to petroleum, it was one of the earliest articles to question the merits of crop-based ethanol. The analysis done by Sautter, Laura Furrey JD’08, who now works for the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, and Lee Gresham JD’07, who is finishing his doctorate in electrical engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon, is now widely accepted as fact and has since been reprinted in the seminal legal textbook, Global Climate Change and the U.S. Law, by Michael B. Gerrard. Impact on Energy Law and Practice

As it becomes more established and well known, the institute for Energy and the Environment is both attracting top talent to VLS and sending out bright and well-trained graduates like Sautter, Furrey, and Gresham to take positions of leadership in energy law. Paul Foley, a 2011 LLM candidate and one of the current global energy fellows, practiced environmental law for seven years in New York and California before he came to VLS. He was drawn to the school specifically for the opportunity to go deeper into energy law. “i had learned enough about energy law in private practice to know that i didn’t know enough,” says Foley. “increasingly

“The institute gave me a chance to see how the concepts I’ve been digesting play out in the real world.” — Patrick Joy JD’10, Research Associate

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there isn’t environmental law without energy. The fellowship was a great opportunity to focus more on the policy issues of the day while learning more about energy law.” “There are very few energy lawyers out there, and while they tend to be conversant on environmental topics, that’s not often true in the reverse,” says Jim Landis LLM’09, who earned VLS’s special certificate in energy law. But, he says, that’s changing. “More and more, it’s expected that environmental attorneys will be able to converse about energy law.” As they leave VLS with energy law credentials, institute graduates are finding influential positions at the u.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Energy regulatory Commission, the Conservation Law Foundation, and Pacific Gas & Electric. others have joined law firms that are strong in energy issues, such as Bernstein Shur in Concord, New Hampshire, and DeWitt ross & Stevens in Madison, Wisconsin. Landis, who is now a commander in the u.S. Navy JAG Corps, is deputy environmental counsel for the chief of naval operations. Thanks in large part to the exposure he had to energy law at Vermont Law School, Landis was invited to join the President’s ocean Policy task Force along with Navy task Forces for Energy and Climate Change. With almost 1.5 million Americans on active duty, the u.S. military has a sizable environmental impact. Landis is proud that from 2003 to

2009, the Navy reduced its energy use by 16 percent. As important an issue as energy law is, it’s underrepresented in law school curricula nationwide, making iEE’s course offerings particularly unique. one of the iEE’s projects, “teaching Energy with an Environmental twist,” is working to develop a model curriculum for teaching energy law. its preliminary assessment of the curriculum in schools nationwide found that fewer than half of u.S. law schools have even a single course on energy law, and those courses often have a traditional leaning toward oil and natural gas law. VLS stands out not only for the number of courses devoted to energy law, but its focus on renewable energy. Energy Law and Policy in a Carbon Constrained World, which 58 students took last fall, is a course designed to represent, in Dworkin’s words, “what anybody who cares about the environment for any reason should learn about energy, regardless of whether they’re going to work in the field.” About half of those students take the spring course, Energy regulation, Markets and the Environment. For those who are sure they want to be in the field, Dworkin created the Advanced Energy Writing Seminar, in which about 10 to 12 students each complete a publicationquality paper. Each summer, VLS offers a variety of shorter energy-focused

“I found the Vermont Law School students to be enthusiastic, dedicated, and intensely interested in the most challenging energy law topics of the day. My short time teaching there was thoroughly rewarding.”

— Jon Wellinghoff, FERC Chairman

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courses as part of Summer Session. Topics run the gamut from the laws regulating nuclear power to oil and gas leases to how the electric system is financed. Often practicing professionals make up 10 to 25 percent of each class, as they look for in-depth knowledge or a career shift. And not all of them are lawyers. “We get first-rate people from related fields who want to understand how a lawyer thinks about this stuff,” says Dworkin. “If you’re looking around a class of 15, you might see 2 Carnegie Mellon doctoral students in engineering, 3 practicing lawyers shifting careers, and 10 law students trying to get in deep. Intellectually, it’s a real pleasure to get that mix.” What’s Most Needed Next

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the IEE gives a tremendous amount of credit to Dworkin for both his expertise and his hard work. “He’s a rainmaker,” says Sautter. “He constantly finds high-quality work for the institute to do.” The name “Michael Dworkin” is instantly recognizable to anyone in the field of energy and the environment, says Landis. “He’s among a handful of people who have been working on environmental issues through energy law for 15 or 20 years. He recognized the importance of that connection long before the rest of the country.”

In 2008, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) presented Dworkin with its Mary Kilmarx Award, given to the person who has best championed good government, clean energy, and the environment. In presenting the award, NARUC praised VLS and the IEE as the nation’s leading example of advocacy and legal education on the energy frontier. Dworkin, who is on the road up to 100 days out of the year, travels to China twice annually to give seminars for Chinese energy regulators, educators, and legal professionals. When Dworkin recently gave a talk for the State Electricity Regulatory Commission in Beijing, the government organization that coordinates the operation of the nation’s power plants, four of its six division leaders were in attendance; the other two sent high-ranking deputies. As valued a faculty member as Dworkin is at VLS, it’s also clear the respect runs both ways. “VLS established the Institute for Energy and the Environment because it realized that energy was an under-recognized area in thinking about environmental policy,” says Dworkin. “VLS has a superb reputation for environmental law and one of the ways to maintain that is by not doing the same thing over and over again. Instead, we focus on what’s most needed next.”

Summer Energy Seminars

The Curriculum

These seminars offer a unique opportunity to explore in depth the legal and substantive issues affecting the fundamental energy infrastructure of our society. Each course brings nationally recognized experts and practitioners together with dedicated students and midcareer professionals to analyze the most important controversies in the interface between energy and the environment.

ABCs of Analyzing Energy and the Environment Nuclear Power and Public Policy Energy Development and Climate Change Renewable Energy and Other Alternative Fuels Oil and Gas Production and the Environment America’s Energy Crisis: Eight Fridays with National Experts

For more information on the Summer Energy Seminars and the Summer Session visit www.vermontlaw.edu/summer

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Arthur Toga/UCLA/Visuals Unlimited/Getty Images

Faculty Highlights

The Growth of Neurolaw by Oliver R. Goodenough Over the past two decades, there has been an explosion in the field of cognitive neuroscience. Astonishing technological developments, like the MRI and PET scans, now open up the working brain to observation and study, and the resulting increase in our knowledge has been dramatic. Many fields have benefitted from the new insights. Psychology now combines its rich behavioral history with functional understandings about brain structure and chemistry. Advances from cognitive neuroscience have flowed beyond mind science and have been incorporated into economics, literary studies, art history, and education. In almost any existing discipline, you can put the prefix “neuro” in front of the traditional name for the field and find scholarly activity. Law is no exception. Law is deeply interested in how people think and behave, and over the last few years, “law and neuroscience” or, more succinctly, “neurolaw” has become a recognized field of study, attracting scholarly, popular, and practi-

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tioner interest. Many of the initial efforts in neurolaw have focused on brain science techniques with direct courtroom application. This category includes attempts to develop objective methods for assessing such traditionally subjective questions as pain, truth-telling, and memory. Notwithstanding the interest sparked by these efforts at “mind reading,” the development of courtroom-ready applications has been slow. And beyond the technical problems, important questions of neural privacy are only beginning to be addressed. Getting neuroscientific results into the courtroom in a specific case raises a number of issues for the law of evidence. The science itself must meet tests of reliability and acceptance, and its application to a legally relevant question must be established. Much of the work in neuroscience involves cumulating the results of multi-subject studies, which don’t always translate to reliable conclusions about a particular subject. Undue influence on judges and juries is also a potential problem. Studies have shown that people are

too easily persuaded by arguments—even faulty ones—that include brain-scanning images. Neurolaw approaches have begun to be applied to questions of criminal law, some relating to specific cases, and others to matters of legal policy more generally, such as responsibility, addiction, and mental health. The work on responsibility remains controversial, at least in its application to adults. The traditional folk-psychological approaches seem to fit with our desires for punishment, and the law may better reflect the psychology of punishers as apposed to those being punished. The need for a more nuanced approach to the consequences we inflict on those adjudged criminal has gained broader acceptance. Both courts and legislatures have taken some initiative. The recent development of such tailored responses as drug courts and mental health courts shows a desire to get away from incarceration as the principal weapon in the anticrime arsenal. These developments had already been under way before neurolaw came into the mix, but neuroscience has helped to increase their effectiveness and accelerate their spread. There is also increasing study of our processes of moral and legal judgment. How do we generate and apply normative rules—questions of ought—whether derived from abstract ethics, moral sentiments, or legal formulations? What is the relation of judgments made in formal, explicit contexts, such as by a judge or jury in a court of law, and those made viscerally and in the heat of the moment? Although these processes are tied together by the concept of some form of behavioral obligation, there is a long history of disputes in philosophy, jurisprudence, and psychology about the function, merits, and interrelations of these different normative systems and domains. It is in just such an area of tangled explanations and discordant models about the nature of thought that cognitive neuroscience has

Faculty Highlights

Professor Michael McCann: A Key Player in Sports Law Professor Michael McCann wants to spark students’ interest in new, unexplored realms. Take Sports Law, a class he teaches as a seminar at VLS, and as a reading group at Yale Law School. “Sports Law enables me to talk about areas of the law that otherwise might not interest students. Antitrust, for example, sounds complicated and dry. But when seen in the context of whether or not leagues can enforce age limits in professional sports, it becomes much more interesting. Often people expect Sports Law to be ‘Law Lite,’ but I think it’s the opposite. It’s a really good class for teaching the law.”

Kathleen Dooher

the potential to make a major contribution, not only to our academic understanding, but to the shaping of our institutions of law as well. Or at least, I hope so, because this area of research is one of the principal targets of my own work. In 2001 I published “Mapping Cortical Areas Associated with Legal Reasoning and with Moral Intuition,” one of the earliest law journal articles suggesting the promise of neurolaw. I also coedited one of the first issues of a scholarly journal devoted to the subject: “Law and the Brain” appeared originally in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 2004 and then as an Oxford University Press book in 2006. VLS has played its own role in the growth of the field. In 2009, we hosted a workshop on law and neuroscience for the Vermont Legislature, and the Vermont Law Review published an issue devoted to papers from a symposium at the University of Chicago Law School that explored the relationship between law and emotion, many of which took an explicitly neurolaw approach to the subject. There is much to be done as neurolaw moves from an exciting set of possibilities to a more mature branch of legal studies—many claims remain controversial, and neurological research directed at specifically legal problems is at an early stage. Over the past few years, however, the Law and Neuroscience Project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, has helped to move the field forward, and its website, www.lawandneuroscienceproject.org, is a good entry point for those wanting further information on the subject. Even as it experiences the challenges of growth, neurolaw is having an increasing impact on legal scholarship. The recent AALS annual conference featured neurolaw-based presentations in a number of different panels. SSRN has recently established a Law and Neuroscience Journal. It looks like the study of neurolaw is here to stay.

Professor Michael McCann

When McCann is standing before a classroom, he’s thinking about ways to reach each and every student. “My goals are to make sure I’m clear, to encourage everyone to raise a hand, and to bring in other disciplines to keep it interesting.” McCann’s first-year torts class does just that, by incorporating recent changes in

tort reform, or by asking students to argue on the side of a case they might not initially choose to represent. Numerous teaching awards, including Professor of the Year at Mississippi College School of Law, attest to McCann’s engaging teaching. McCann is a nationally recognized expert in the field of sports law, antitrust, and behavioral law and economics. His Yale Law Journal piece on American Needle v. NFL analyzes what is, according to McCann, arguably the most important sports law case in U.S. history. Recently heard before the Supreme Court, the case examines whether pro sports leagues are “single entities” for the purpose of the Sherman Act. But McCann brings sports law to a broader audience beyond the legal and legislative worlds. He is legal analyst and columnist for Sports Illustrated and the magazine’s online version, SI.com. He is frequently interviewed for national television and radio programs, as well as newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post. McCann relishes the challenge of switching from an academic writing style to a more mainstream one and appreciates the feedback he receives from nonlawyers. “I learn a lot. People write to me about the SI column, and they look at the law from a really interesting perspective. I’m struck by the level of sophistication.” Why did a sports law expert decide to teach at VLS? “The law school is at the forefront of environmental law and policy, and while those areas are outside my expertise, it’s neat to know that I work alongside the world’s top people in hugely important fields.” It doesn’t hurt that he’s a huge fan of New England sports teams. Favorite fan moment? “I was at game two of the 2004 World Series. Curt Schilling pitched the game in a bloody sock, and we went on to win the game and the series. It’s a great memory.”

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Faculty Highlights

Michele Martinez Campbell: Prosecutor, Crime Writer, Professor For eight years, Michele Martinez Campbell’s job was the stuff of novels, “a constant adrenaline rush,” as she puts it. As the assistant united States attorney in the eastern district of New York, she prosecuted Mexican cocaine cartels who loaded bundles of cash into tractor-trailers, Burmese warlords who smuggled heroin through ports in containers, and local drug lords who ran murderous operations in Brooklyn and queens. “it was my dream job,” she says. Then it became, literally, the stuff of novels. She gave birth to two sons who were “little whirlwinds—i was torn between giving 100 percent to them and 100 percent to my job, and realized the math didn’t work out.” Searching for options, she started writing a thriller; the opening scene actually came to her in a vivid dream involving the fiery death of a silver-haired lawyer with a double life. Her heroine, Melanie Vargas, was a swashbuckling prosecutor—Michele’s alter ego, with a lot more sex and violence thrown in. The book, Most Wanted, took off; oth-

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ers followed, and in 2001, she left the prosecutor’s office. “i did not go peacefully,” she says. “i missed the work terribly.” She moved with her husband four years ago to the upper Valley, the ideal place to raise the boys. Then came Chapter 3 in her professional life. An author’s talk at a local library eventually led to discussions with Dean Jeff Shields about teaching. “i jumped at the chance,” she says. “i always wanted a door back into criminal law.” After a semester as an adjunct, she was appointed visiting assistant professor. She now teaches courses in criminal law and criminal procedure, drawing on her expertise in trial and appellate advocacy, title iii wiretap law, and international extradition law. Having conducted more than 100 grand jury investigations and scores of jury trials, evidentiary hearings, appellate oral arguments, and sentencing proceedings, she enlivens her lectures with true-life cases of murder, kidnapping, and international drug trafficking. “i love teaching and i love the students, and i get to delve into law in a format and

environment that encourages creativity and thoughtfulness,” she says. “My favorite thing about VLS is the incredible community of students, faculty, and staff, which is unique and special—supportive, talented, collegial, and service-oriented.” Michele grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, during the height of urban tensions in the late 60s and 70s. Her father, who was born in Puerto rico and raised in Manhattan, got his GED, went to college on the Gi Bill, and ran prison inmate education programs; her mother, the daughter of russian Jewish immigrants, was a secretary. “They taught me that i could achieve anything if i worked hard,” she says. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, received her JD with distinction from Stanford, clerked for a judge, and worked as a corporate lawyer before becoming a prosecutor in 1993. So is a novel in the works about murder in the Vermont backwoods, perhaps involving a crabby law professor or overworked student? No—but she is working on a thriller about the crack epidemic in New York in the 1980s. Although she is often approached by would-be writers with a novel in their head or desk drawer, that seldom happens at VLS, she says: “Here, people are very focused on the law.”

More VLS faculty blogging

Click on the link in the footer of any of the web pages at www.vermontlaw.edu.

Faculty Highlights

Faculty News Professor Susan B. Apel’s article “Access Denied: Assisted Reproductive Technology Services and the Resurrection of Hill-Burton” was published in 35 William Mitchell Law Review 412 (2009).

participate in the United Nations Conference on Climate Change. The VLS COP15 delegation received significant local press coverage, including an interview with Professor Clemmer on Vermont Public Radio.

Professor Tracy Bach presented in Copenhagen, Denmark, at a COP15 side conference entitled “Intergenerational Equity and Climate Change,” sponsored by the European Youth Forum as part of the “COP15 Young and Future Generations Day” in December. Professor Bach attended COP15 as a member of the VLS observer delegation. As a 2009–10 Fulbright Scholar, she has been teaching and conducting research at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal.

Senior Research Fellow for Economic Analysis at the IEE Dr. Mark Cooper’s research paper All Risk, No Reward for Taxpayers and Ratepayers: The Economics of Subsidizing the “Nuclear Renaissance” with Loan Guarantees and Construction Work in Progress continues to be cited by a variety of media, including USA Today, The Tennessean, WBIR-TV (Knoxville, Tennessee), Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Mother Jones. As a 2009–10 Fulbright Scholar, Professor

Jason Czarnezki spent the fall and spring

semesters in Guangzhou, China, teaching environmental law and natural resources law as well as an introduction to American law at Sun Yat-sen University’s School of Law.

Tracy Bach visits with the women and girls at a compound in Bamako, Mali.

In January, Professor Betsy Baker presented a paper on “The Beaufort Sea: Comparing Inuvialuit and Inupiat Participation in Marine Management Decisions” at “Arctic Frontiers 2010, Sustainable Communities in the High North,” in Tromsø, Norway, where she also served as a Rapporteur for the Arctic Governance Project Summit meeting. She presented an invited paper, “From the Gulf of Maine to the Beaufort Sea: 25 Years of Change for Arctic Neighbours,” at “Shared Borders and Dividing Lines: A Century of Canada-U.S. Territorial and Boundary Disputes,” a conference in Montreal sponsored by the Université de Montréal faculty of law in December. Professor Teresa Clemmer was a panelist at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference at the University of Oregon in February. In December, Professor Clemmer organized the VLS student and faculty observer delegation to Copenhagen, Denmark, to observe and

Professor Johanna Dennis’s article “The ‘Process’ of Patenting: Why Should We Care About a Potential U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Bilski v. Doll?” was published in Computer Law & Security Review (November 2009). Her article “Allowing Judicial Review of Motions to Reopen Kucana v. Holder” appeared in the American Bar Association-Section on International Law, Immigration and Naturalization Committee Newsletter (fall 2009). Professor Tim Duane recently had two articles published: “Grizzly Bears, Gray Wolves and Federalism, Oh My! The Role of the Endangered Species Act in De Facto EcosystemBased Management in the Greater Glacier Region of Northwest Montana” (with Lara D. Guercio LLM’09), in the Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation (winter 2010); and “Easement Exchanges for Agricultural Conservation: A Case Study Under the Williamson Act in California” (with Brendan Stewart), in Landscape Journal (fall 2009). Professor Michael Dworkin moderated a panel for the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s “Forum on Energy Efficiency in Agriculture” in Madison, Wisconsin in February. In December, he presented at numerous international conferences, includ-

ing “Copenhagen, Obama’s Energy Goals, and Carbon Options for the U.S. and China” at the Environmental Law Institute of Zhongnan University of Finance, Politics and Law, Wuhan City, China. Professor Dworkin also presented at several national events last fall, including “Decision-making Under Uncertain Conditions: Climate Change Applications” at Carnegie-Mellon University, and was moderator of a panel at the “Annual Award Ceremony Presentation: Chairman Jon Wellinghoff of the FERC,” Washington, D.C. The fifth edition of Professor Stephen Dycus’s book National Security Law (with Arthur L. Berney, William C. Banks, and Peter Raven-Hansen) is under contract to be published in 2011. His 2009–2010 Supplement for National Security Law & Counterterrorism Law, 4th ed. (with William C. Banks and Peter Raven-Hansen) was published by Aspen Publishers (2009).

Professor John Echeverria discussed a case heard by the Supreme Court, Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, at the Georgetown University Law Center in December. Professor Echeverria filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of the American Planning Council and its Florida chapter and was also quoted in a December 2 New York Times article about the case. Professor Echeverria, organizer of the 12th Annual Conference on Litigating Regulatory Takings Challenges to Land Use and Environmental Regulations held at VLS in November, was a panelist for the session, “Is Water Regulation a Taking?” Professor Stephanie Farrior spoke in January at the University of Virginia School of Law on “Internationalizing Concerns about Human Rights Abuses in the US: Developments at the UN and the OAS.” She spoke at the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting on the panel on “Cross-Currents in International Law, Human Rights Law and National Security Law,” and was reelected to the Section on International Law, this time to an officer position, treasurer. In the fall she spoke on “Accountability for the Torture Memos” at the conference “After Guantanamo: The Way Forward” at Case Western Reserve Law School. Professor Farrior’s article on the European Court of Human

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Faculty Highlights

Rights judgment in Behrami v. France made three SSRN Top Ten Download lists. Her Oxford article “Human Rights Advocacy on Gender Issues: Challenges and Opportunities” made two SSRN Top Ten Download lists.

Goodenough presented “Strategic Mechanisms, Functional Modeling and Experimental Design in Neurolaw” at the 4th Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies at the UCLA School of Law in November. Goodenough was a co-organizer and presenter at “Law and Neuroscience for Judges” in Chicago last November.

Professor Jackie Gardina was appointed to the AALS Government Relations Committee and as chair of the LGBT Committee for the Society of American Law Teachers. She chaired the Mid-Year Professional Development Committee for the AALS Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues. Professor Gardina’s paper “The Tipping Point: Legal Epidemics, Constitutional Doctrine, and the Defense of Marriage Act” was listed on an SSRN Top Ten Download list. She was interviewed by the Rutland Herald for an article on Admiral Mike Mullin’s call for repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and organized the March student trip to Washington, D.C., for Lobby Day to encourage Congress to repeal the policy.

Mig Dooley

Professor Cheryl Hanna’s article “The Paradox of Progress: Translating Evan Stark’s Coercive Control into Legal Doctrine for Abused Women” has been nominated for the Best Article Award from Violence Against Women, the leading interdisciplinary, peerreviewed journal in her field. Professor Hanna gave a talk with Professor Elizabeth Schneider of Brooklyn Law School at the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting for the president’s panel on Transformative Teaching and Institution Building. Her paper “Rethinking Consent in a ‘Big Love’ Way,” to be published in 2010 by the Michigan Journal of Gender & the Law, was listed in SSRN’s Top Ten Download list. Professor Hanna was recently appointed as vice-chairperson of the board of directors of the Snelling Center for Government and will assume the role of president of the board in the fall of 2010.

Professor Jackie Gardina and Erin LaVoie ’12 prepare for their first visit with a senator during Lobby Day 2010.

Professor Oliver Goodenough presented “Future of Venture Finance: Reflections on Short-Term Fixes and a Possible Full-Scale Redesign,” at The Future of Venture Finance, a conference organized by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, in Coconut Grove, Florida, in January. Professor Goodenough was selected as the 2010 recipient of the Richard Brooks Faculty Scholarship Prize, an award given to a VLS faculty member who has consistently exhibited the highest standards of scholarship. At the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting he presented “Reflections on the Status of Biolaw,” in anticipation of the founding of the AALS Section on Law and Biology (Biolaw).

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Professor Hillary Hoffman’s “A Changing of the Cattle Guard: the Bureau of Land Management’s New Approach to Grazing Qualifications” was published in the Journal of Environmental Law & Litigation (February 2010). Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Diversity Shirley Jefferson was featured in a video profile “Cover Story” for New England Cable News Network in November. View the video at www.vermontlaw.edu/DeanofStudents. Professor Gregory Johnson has been appointed to the Program Committee of the Association of Legal Writing Directors Biennial Conference in 2011. His article “We’ve Heard This Before: The Legacy of Interracial Marriage Bans and the Implications for Today’s Marriage Equality Debates” was published in the “Dartmouth College Law Day” symposium issue of the 34 Vermont Law Review (winter 2009). Professor Martha Judy’s chapter, “Cost Recovery: The Impact of Aviall and Atlan-

tic Research on Voluntary Cleanups” is being published in June in the third edition of Todd Davis’ treatise, Brownfields: A Comprehensive Guide to Redeveloping Contaminated Property. She was invited to present a paper at Fordham Law School’s Symposium in March on “Environmental Lawsuits and Corporate and Social Responsibility: The Role of Litigation in Promoting Good Environmental Practice.” At the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting, Professor Judy was named to the Program Committee of the Section on Teaching Methods. In the fall 2009 term, Professor Judy oversaw the creation of the first two VLS environment and energy courses to be offered entirely online. Professor Reed Elizabeth Loder’s article “Breath of Life: Ethical Wind Power and Wildlife” was published in 507 Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, Vol. 10, Issue 3 (2009). Professor Michael McCann presented at a faculty colloquium at Boston College Law School on his article, “American Needle v. NFL: An Opportunity to Reshape Sports Law,” in 119 Yale Law Journal (December 2009). His article “Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the Relationship between Leagues and Players: Insights and Implications” was published in the Connecticut Law Review (2010). He taught a sports law reading group at Yale Law School and colectured at Harvard Law School on antitrust and labor law issues concerning the National Basketball Association’s collective bargaining agreement. He has commented on various sports law cases for a multitude of national media, including The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, CBS Sports Radio, ESPN, and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. Professor Janet Milne presented a paper on “Environmental Taxation in the United States: Retrospective and Prospective” at a conference in Hong Kong on “Green Taxation in East Asia: Problems and Prospects” in February, to be published by Edward Elgar Publishing in a book containing the conference papers. Professor Milne’s paper on “Watersheds: Runoff from the Tax Code,” prepared for the VLS-McGill workshop on water issues in October, is now available at the VJEL website and will be published in Vermont Law Review. Last fall, she presented a paper in Lisbon, “A Dark Recession, Green Economy and Red Ink,” accepted for publication in Volume VIII of Critical

Faculty Highlights Call for Papers 11th Annual Global Conference on Environmental Taxation

The 11th Annual Global Conference on Environmental Taxation (GCET) will be held in Bangkok on November 3–5, 2010. GCET provides a forum for the exchange of ideas, information, and research findings about environmental taxation issues and sustainable economic development. The VLS Environmental Tax Policy Institute is a supporting sponsor, and the institute’s director, Professor Janet Milne serves on the international steering committee for the conference series. Abstracts may be submitted from May 3 through June 7, 2010. Details are available at www.vermontlaw. edu/envirotax.

Issues in Environmental Taxation (Oxford University Press, forthcoming Fall 2010). Professor Milne is coeditor of Volume VII of Critical Issues in Environmental Taxation, published in September 2009. Professor Pat Parenteau was quoted in a story that appeared in 87 news outlets nationwide in February—including USA Today, the Oregonian, the Denver Post and the Chicago Tribune—about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to not list the American Pika as endangered because of climate change. In December, Professor Parenteau delivered the keynote address at the “2009 Vermont Community Energy and Climate Action Conference.” He was quoted in a December 1 story in The New York Times about the challenges that law schools face in educating students in climate change law and policy. He contributed a chapter on “The Take Prohibition” in The Endangered Species Act: Law, Policy and Perspective (2d ed.), published by the ABA in November 2009, and presented a paper, “Come Hell and High Water: Coping with the Unavoidable Consequences of Climate Change,” at the VLS-McGill “Workshop on Water” held at VLS in October.

Mountains: A New Model for Selecting Moot Court Teams,” at the annual meeting of the New England Consortium of Legal Writing Teachers in December. He continues to contribute to the commentary series on Vermont Public Radio, including “Bridging Cultural Divides Through Sport.” Professor Robert Rachlin’s paper “What was Jewish about the ‘Jewish Influence’ on German Law as Viewed by Nazi Legal Theorists?” has been accepted for presentation at the 11th Lessons and Legacies Conference, a conference of Holocaust scholars, to be held in Boca Raton, Florida, in November 2010. Professor Betsy Schmidt’s casebook, The Law of Charitable Corporations: Theory and Practice is under contract with Aspen. She is currently part of the IRS Tax Exempt and Governmental Entity’s Academic Initiative, working with the IRS to improve education concerning taxexempt organizations. In the fall of 2009, Professor Linda Smiddy taught a course on U. S. Corporate Law as a visiting professor at the University of CergyPontoise. Professor Smiddy is an invited member of the AALS Committee on International Relations. With Professor Betsy Schmidt, she served as faculty advisor and panel moderator for the Law Review Symposium on Corporate Creativity in February 2010. Professor Pamela Stephens’ article “Applying Human Rights Norms to Climate Change: The Elusive Remedy,” has been published in 49 Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 21 (winter 2010).

Professor Craig Pease is coauthor of the article, “Temporal variation in the carrying capacity of a perennial grass population,” forthcoming in the American Naturalist, a leading peer-review journal of ecology and evolutionary biology. He writes a Science and the Law column for The Environmental Forum, including “Costs, Benefits and Malthus’ Mistake” (Nov./Dec. 2009) and “A Tale of Two GM Organisms Cases” (Jan./Feb. 2010).

Professor Peter Teachout was a visiting professor during fall term at the Boston College School of Law, where he taught courses in Constitutional Law and European Union Law. In January he testified before the Vermont House Judiciary Committee on constitutional aspects of a proposal to reform the Vermont judiciary. After a spring term sabbatical in Buenos Aires working on a book, in May, Professor Teachout is giving a series of lectures at the University of Trento in Italy on selected topics in comparative constitutional law.

Professor Brian Porto, along with Professor Johanna Dennis, gave a presentation, “Moving

Professor Jack Tuholske’s article “Hot Fish, Cold Water, a Tale of Two Trout” will be

published in the next issue of the Vermont Law Review. In January, he argued a major Clean Water Act case before the Montana Supreme Court. During February, he spoke at the University of Oregon Public Interest Environmental Law Conference on panels on climate change and the influence of retaliatory “SLAPP” suits on citizen litigation. At the conference, the University of Oregon presented Professor Tuholske the 2010 Kerry Rydberg Award for accomplishments as a private practitioner in public interest environmental law. Professor Joan Vogel spoke at a session at the March “Vulnerable Populations and Economic Realities” poverty law teaching conference at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, sponsored by the Society of American Law Teachers and Golden Gate University. Professor Stephanie Willbanks presented “The AALS/ABA Site Inspection: The Reporter’s Role” on a panel at the AALS Site Evaluators Workshop at the AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans in January. Professor Kinvin Wroth is serving as reporter to the Vermont Supreme Court’s Joint Advisory Committee to Consider Amendments to Rules of Professional Conduct Re: Investigatory Misrepresentations and also serves as AALS reporter on the joint AALS/ABA Site Inspection Team that visits Northern Illinois University College of Law in spring 2010. Professor Wroth’s summary of the recent amendments to the Vermont Rules of Professional Conduct that incorporated the “Ethics 2000” amendments to the ABA Model Rules has been published online as “Wroth on Vermont Rules of Professional Conduct” in LexisNexis Emerging Issues Analysis, 2009 Emerging Issues 4536 (November 2009). Professor Tseming Yang’s article “The Emergence of Global Environmental Law” (with Robert V. Percival) was published in Ecology Law Quarterly, Vol. 36, Issue 3 (fall 2009). Professor Carl Yirka’s paper, “The Yirka Question and Yirka’s Answer: What should law libraries stop doing in order to address higher priority initiatives?” was listed on SSRN’s Top Ten Download list for LSN: Administration, Management and Leadership.

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SCHOLARSHIPS FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD (and the Good of the School)

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E. William tucker JD’12

Kathleen Dooher

By Diane Derby

After completing his first year at Vermont Law, E. William tucker plans to spend this summer in South Africa working with uNiCEF to bring a model of his Atlanta-based environmental education program to schoolchildren in that country. it was during his undergraduate days at Morehouse College that William saw a disconnect between underprivileged communities and the environment, which led him to start Creyahtion (pronounced “creation”). Founded in 2007, the nonprofit organization’s initial efforts were aimed at recycling, but the program has grown to include a wide range of sustainability efforts aimed at encouraging urban youth to join what he calls “the green movement.” With the program’s demonstrated success, William has been searching for ways to expand the reach of Creyahtion, yet the chance to travel to South Africa might not have been realized without the benefit of his VLS scholarship. “This is an opportunity that i probably wouldn’t have been able to grab hold of if i had to focus on getting a job that was going to pay me this summer,” says William, who began his career as a sixth-grade earth science teacher. “Giving back to the community is more rewarding than the paycheck i would receive. i truly am thankful for this opportunity and plan to do the most with it.” Ben Jones, also completing his first year at VLS, credits his scholarship for allowing him the option to choose VLS over its Canadian rivals. Ben had been living in northern British Columbia and the Yukon for nearly a decade, working as a bush pilot and developing educational programs for first nation students. For reasons of both cost and convenience, it made sense for him to attend law school closer to home. He had already been accepted at a top Canadian law school and offered a scholarship there when he visited the VLS campus in spring 2009. He met with Kathy Hartman, associate dean for enrollment, who arranged for his tour of the campus and meetings with professors. “i was extremely impressed. i was almost disappointed, because i didn’t want to uproot myself again and come to the spring 2010

The class of 2012 averaged one of the highest GPAs for an entering class in VLS history.

states,” he says. With a dialect that reveals his native England, Ben explains that after returning from graduate work in Belgium, he was originally planning to stay settled in Canada for law school. “As a pilot, I moved around an awful lot, so I was looking forward to sitting tight on the west coast for a little while. But when I compared the two law schools, I thought VLS was the better fit for me. It certainly offered more in the way of environmental law programs, and it seemed like a very dynamic place.” “The school has a real sense of purpose—people coming together to achieve something,” Ben says. So at 37, he traded a career flying de Havilland Beaver float planes for a three-year commitment to study environmental law, which he finds “intellectually stimulating and satisfying.” “Without the scholarship, it would have been impossible for me to come here,” he says. He notes that the aid will also allow him to attend summer sessions for a dual JD/MELP degree.

Both William and Ben are among a group of first-year students who have been awarded the first of VLS’s Public Citizen Scholarships. In addition to strong academic backgrounds, the scholarship recognizes a broad range of endeavors that recipients have taken on before attending law school, backgrounds that fit well with the VLS philosophy. “These are people who have already demonstrated their commitment to public citizenship. We do not put any requirements on them. There are no specific strings attached,” says Dean Hartman. “We are in a way thanking them and acknowledging them for the public service they have already done.” Vermont Law School has long considered the varied backgrounds of its applicants as part of the admissions process, but with the class of 2012, the public citizen piece was made a little more formal. These scholarships are among a range of financial offerings that make it possible for students not 24 loquitur

Kathleen Dooher

Yielding the Best for VLS

Ben Jones JD’12

“The school has a real sense of purpose—people coming together to achieve something.” —Ben Jones JD’12, scholarship recipient

only to attend law school but to choose VLS among a host of options. They also allow students to pursue research and internship opportunities that otherwise might be off-limits due to financial strains. In any given year, VLS offers upward of $2 million in scholarship assistance to incoming students, ranging from small awards to full tuition. Many of the scholarships follow students through their three years of studies as long as they keep up their GPA. In the last eight years, only one student has lost a scholarship for not doing so. The most recent snapshot of the VLS student enrollment, as reported to the American Bar Association, showed that of a total of 552 students enrolled, 290 (52.5 percent) were receiving some form of scholarship or grant assistance. However, the percentage drops significantly, to under 5 percent, for scholarships that cover at least half of the total tuition (26 of 552 students). It is a percentage that Dean Hartman would like to see grow to keep VLS competitive with law schools that report much higher percentages in that category. Scholarships are considered a key tool in recruitment. For entering classes in a typical year, 22 to 24 percent of VLS scholarship offers that are extended are accepted. That number spiked with the entering class in 2009, for reasons related to a combination of factors: the economic downturn, the law school’s top-ranked environmental law program, and a strong outreach effort. Along with the higher-than-average scholarship acceptance rate came a significant achievement: The class of 2012 averaged one of the highest GPAs for an entering class in VLS history, at 3.32, with an average LSAT score of 155. Dean Hartman says the VLS trend toward stronger scores and merit scholarship offerings reflects what is happening at law schools nationwide. With ever-growing competition among law schools, the national shift has moved from need-based to merit-based considerations. But, she notes, the decisions on extending VLS scholarships are also based on the principles that VLS holds near and dear to its educational mission.

“We’re striving to attract the best and the brightest, and those who have a commitment to and passion for advocacy,” she explains. Dean Jeff Shields notes that merit scholarships are just one of many forms of assistance offered at VLS, including the needs-based Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) awards that help support students who commit to public service after graduation. And he notes that students who are awarded scholarships tend to bring more than just strong LSAT scores with them. “What we have found is that often those who receive various scholarships greatly enrich the life of the school for all of our students. It elevates the game for everybody in terms of the level of discussion in class. These are people who turn out to be the leaders on campus and bring other students along,” he says. “We have to be creative in the ways we attract students. Offering these scholarships is just one component, but it’s an important component.” Choosing Public Citizenship

Scholarships not only make law school possible for many students, they provide students with the financial flexibility to pursue their varied legal interests rather than being constrained by the pressures of finding higher-paying jobs. As an undergraduate at Gettysburg College, Katie Amestoy JD’11 spent a year studying European politics in Copenhagen. After graduation, she headed to Brussels to research issues for the U.S. delegation in the European Parliament. Having grown up in Vermont (her father served as chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court), she wasn’t sure it would be her choice for law school after being surrounded by the cultures of large European cities. Yet she was impressed by the VLS recruitment efforts, which she describes as detail-oriented, organized, and targeted. “I thought it was really personal. It was the only school where I really felt wanted,” she says. She was further impressed spring 2010 25

“There is a real opportunity to effect change in everything from international to environmental policy through business law.”

Katie Amestoy JD’11 26 loquitur

Kathleen Dooher

—Katie Amestoy JD’11, scholarship recipient

by questions on the application. One such question asked her to define how she viewed her role in the global community, which meant something to a young woman whose interests leaned toward international human rights work. “I remember being struck by the fact that the questions were a little outside the norm of what I was being asked by other law schools,” she says. When she visited the VLS campus, she was also considering a “nice offer” from Penn State and a few other options. In the end, she was surprised by how much she liked the school and the quaint charms of South Royalton. A scholarship offer would also play a critical part in her decision-making. “Having the financial support was very reassuring in an economy that is so uncertain. I feel less overwhelmed by loans,” she says. Katie spent her spring semester serving as a judicial intern in Washington County Superior Court, where the sitting judge proved a valuable mentor. A 2L Student Bar Association senator, she is also staff editor on the Vermont Law Review—opportunities that she says might have not been possible without the scholarship aid. “It’s supporting my entire law school education,” she says. While she was initially focused on international human rights, she now thinks business law might be her future path. She’ll spend the summer exploring that path in the Burlington office of Primmer Piper Eggleston & Cramer. “It keeps changing as I keep on learning new things. It’s entirely possible that I could graduate with an entirely different focus,” she says with a laugh. But whatever course she ultimately takes, she still plans to stay involved in international human rights work, most likely through pro bono work. “There is a real opportunity to effect change in everything from international to environmental policy through business law. A lot of the positive changes in the future will be originating in the business field. I’m excited to be part of this evolution.” A scholarship has enabled Patrick Munson JD/MELP’10 to take advantage of research opportunities that have included two trips to China. “International travel is not cheap. It helped

“It allows people like me to feel they can go ahead and take public service jobs even though they don’t pay as much.”

Patrick Munson JD/MELP’10

Kathleen Dooher

—Patrick Munson JD/MELP’10, scholarship recipient

me with the decision to stay in China for two extra weeks,” he says of his most recent visit. Moreover, the scholarship has relieved much of the debt load he will be faced with when he graduates, thus allowing him to accept a one-year clerkship with a state trial court in Anchorage after graduation. “I might not have had that option if I thought I had to jump on my career path right away,” he says. “It allows people like me to feel they can go ahead and take public service jobs even though they don’t pay as much.” For Munson, the scholarship also proved a key factor in determining whether to choose VLS over a close competitor. He was living in Oregon when he made the decision to study environmental law, and his two choices were to stay close by and attend Lewis and Clark or relocate for VLS. He had been accepted to both schools, but the scholarship offer came with the acceptance letter from VLS. “The offer really did help make the decision a lot easier,” he says of the short-lived quandary. “In that sense, it definitely did make the difference.” Like Munson, third-year JD/MELP student Anna Ellis has found that her scholarship provided great opportunities related to her legal pursuits. Last winter, she attended the climate change talks in Copenhagen with a group of VLS students and professors. She was able to travel to China following a VLS summer course that explored its environmental laws. While there, she met with environmental ministers and NGO leaders and toured the massive Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric project. Her scholarship also allowed her to take a summer internship in Alaska with Earthjustice, an environmental NGO (and helped with the sting of a $900 plane ticket). “The scholarship has significantly eased my mind in terms of not saying ‘no’ to opportunities that have come along. I have definitely done things that were not cheap and that I would have had to think twice about if I had been going to take all of the money out of my own pocket,” says Anna, who graduated from Tulane University in 1998 and worked with her brother in a small famspring 2010 27

Anna Ellis JD/MELP’10 28 loquitur

ily business before traveling to Kenya to work with a forestry NGO in 2005. Christie Popp JD’05 was serving with AmeriCorps in her first year after college when she and her then-boyfriend (now husband) took a vacation to Vermont and Quebec and paid a visit to the VLS campus along the way. “I was intrigued by the public interest and the environmental focus. We stopped in South Royalton and it was just so quaint. It felt perfect for me at that point in my life,” she recalls. Coming from what she describes as a low-income background with her father working in a factory, she was the only person on her father’s side of her family at the time to have achieved a four-year college degree. At Indiana University in Bloomington, she majored in Latin American Studies with a minor in Spanish. When she was accepted at VLS, she was greatly relieved to learn she was being offered a scholarship. “I knew when I went into law school that I wanted to go into public interest law. I knew I would be incurring a lot of debt,” she says. “When I went to law school, the scholarship was enough that I didn’t feel I had to work to pay my expenses. I was able to concentrate on my studies without having to worry about a ridiculous amount of debt.” Christie is now a staff attorney at Indiana Legal Services, Immigrants’ and Language Rights Center, where she practices immigration law. Among other things, she helps victims of crime and domestic violence in obtaining benefits, and represents clients in immigration proceedings. Even with the scholarship help, she says her law school loans still amount “to a very large portion of my salary.” “People go to Vermont Law School because they are publicinterest motivated, or at least a vast majority are. On the other hand, tuition is expensive. For people who come from slightly different circumstances and who are motivated to help others, a scholarship in that case can really help us fulfill our dreams,” she says. “It sounds hokey, and I might sound classist, but I think people who grow up with money take for granted the benefits that come with that. Scholarships tend to even the playing field.”

Class Notes J. Scott Cameron ’80—Reflecting on 26 Years of Service A. VLS was my first good academic experience, where I was really committed. I was grateful for the chance to go to law school. By four years out of VLS, I was doing well, I lived half an hour away, and I wanted to help—I love the school. Back then, as it had to be, the board was a benevolent patriarchy of prestigious people with good sense carrying the school on their shoulders. There were so many people to learn from—Tom Debevoise, Judge Jim Oakes, Norm Redlich, Bob Fiske, and Phil Hoff and Allan Paul, who both preceded me as chairs of the board and were great mentors. There are many others as well who were great role models for me and made a significant impact on the law school in the early years. Q. Did you have a particular objective? A. If I did, it was to reach out to more alumni and women, more people of color. As the institution matured and became more capable, the board needed to change as well, becoming more inclusive and sharing power among a broader group of people. I can still go to any board meeting and keep my mouth shut and can learn so

much—not just from the sages, but from students, who always press for innovations and challenges. Our students elect some wonderful people as student trustees. One of our great former board members, John Hennessey—just being able to work with and learn from him made the whole experience worth it—he was a little dubious about student members having full voting rights, but he became convinced that they added great value to the process. Q. What are you most proud of? A. Putting together a search process and getting buy-in that resulted in our hiring Jeff Shields. Jeff is a leader for this time. Because the people before him established such a good base, he’s led VLS up a final step to a mature, capable, dynamic institution. Look at our China program, Kinvin Wroth’s Land Use Institute, the Institute for Energy and the Environment. VLS has become one of the most exciting and dynamic schools in the country— without losing our soul as a community. And credit has to go to Genie Shields as well for her involvement. I’m extremely proud that all five deans since the mid-80s consistently tried to

John Douglas/Flying Squirrel Graphics

Scott Cameron ’80 was elected to the board of trustees in 1984 and served as chair from 2001 to 2010. When Cameron was a student, the big question was “will Vermont Law School last?” As the first VLS alumnus to chair the board of trustees, and with 26 years of service on the board, Cameron has helped make sure the answer was a resounding and hearty “yes.” He has helped take VLS from a small, locally based school to one with a national and international reputation. A partner in the Montpelier, Vermont, law firm of Zalinger Cameron and Lambek PC, his practice emphasizes civil litigation, labor and employment law, and the negotiation of collective bargaining agreements. Cameron’s history of state service includes appointments as assistant attorney general for the Environmental Litigation Division, and as commissioner of the Department of Personnel. In a recent discussion with Cameron, he takes a look back before stepping down from the board of trustees after 26 years of dedicated service. Q. Why have you spent all these years working for VLS?

Scott Cameron was an editor of The Forum (1977–78 and 1978–79).

Scott Cameron at the 2009 commencement ceremonies

spring 2010 29

Class Notes

eliminate discrimination against gays. Banning the military from campus because of “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” isn’t anti-military; the military will be better if we end this discrimination. I’m proud of our students’ commitment and sensitivity to inclusivity, to Shirley Jefferson’s great work—we’re close to becoming the “beloved community” Martin Luther King Jr. talked about. Debevoise Hall makes my heart glad— it was an eyesore and it’s a gem now, and so vital. A lot of credit goes to our buildings and grounds staff. There’s a lot to be proud of, but frankly, there were times I was scared to death. We’re so tuition dependent, and when enrollments were down it got frightening. But we wanted to keep improving the quality of our students, and this meant having lower enrollment in some years. Now the message is out there about VLS, and I’m proud to have been a small part of it. Q. What’s next? A. I feel good because Jeff Shields has accepted another contract. I don’t think the board will miss a beat with Ed Mattes ’83 as chair and Perez Ehrich as vice-chair. I am hopeful that, instead of serving in the “parental role” of board member, I could be kind of a grandparent, where I have a little distance, but can make a difference and have fun too. I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to serve. And I couldn’t be happier about where VLS is right now. Reflections by his Colleagues “At trustee meetings Scott was flexible in method but comprehensive in scope. In his role as chair, he was always a commanding presence with a sense of purpose, embracing the changes necessary to keep meeting Vermont Law School’s mission. VLS will always resonate with his generous and responsive spirit.” — Mrs. Ann Debevoise, Trustee Emerita 30 loquitur

“Scott is a warm and friendly person with a remarkable empathy for students and alumni and a commitment to strategy, transparency, and fairness. He helped VLS make the transition from one dean to another with sensitivity and intelligence, and helped the school expand its mission in a refreshing way. He’s also shown a remarkable inner ear for developing VLS’s environmental values.” — Professor John W. Hennessey Jr., Trustee Emeritus “He’s very deserving of being honored for his service. He worked very hard, was always prepared, and could elicit support from others. His ability to enlist important members of the board contributed immeasurably to the growth of the school.” — The Honorable Philip Hoff, Trustee Emeritus “Scott has been a strong but very approachable and personable leader—he’s always willing to listen, to consider. He’s helped mightily to assemble a strong board. He led VLS through the capital campaign completed in 2007, the renovation of Debevoise Hall, and furthered the recruitment of minority students. He established trustee visiting days, where trustees sit in on classes and meet with students so they can connect in a personal way.” — Geoffrey B. Shields, President and Dean “He has a great understanding of VLS and how the board of an academic institution needs to balance the interests of faculty, students, administration, and the board. He saw that the institution needed to keep the physical plant current with the needs of students, and was skilled in rallying support. He has shown perhaps the greatest talent for any board chair—knowing the responsibilities of the board and where they stop.” — L. Kinvin Wroth, Former President and Dean, Director of the Land Use Institute

VLSAA News On November 5, 2009, at the offices of Bracewell and Giuliani in Washington, D.C., Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, accepted the 2009 D.C. Vermont Law School Alumni Association Achievement Award. Chairman Wellinghoff applauded Vermont Law School’s continued excellence in environmental law and policy education and emphasized, in particular, the school’s unique leadership in energy law and policy.

Professor Michael Dworkin and FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff With energy-related issues at the fore of national consciousness, Chairman Wellinghoff in his remarks urged the over 50 VLS alumni in attendance to work toward a low-carbon future by supporting the development of new rate structures. The chairman also stressed the urgent need for action to plan for and manage new energy challenges by moving aggressively toward new electric vehicle technology. Director of the VLS Institute for Energy and the Environment Michael Dworkin and Environmental Law Center Director Marc Mihaly were also present at the event and participated in a panel discussion following Chairman Wellinghoff’s remarks. The D.C. VLSAA Achievement Award is presented annually at the discretion of the board to recognize and reward excellence for those making a real contribution

Class Notes

to innovation, implementation, and communication of energy and environmental solutions in the D.C. law and policy community and the wider world. The Vermont Law School Alumni Association is pleased to announce that their initiative to increase the number of officially recognized regional alumni groups has resulted in the creation of two new regional groups. Please join us in welcoming Albany/Capital District and Delaware Valley to the VLSAA family. The Delaware Valley VLSAA started organizing in October following an alumni reception with Dean Shields. The group hopes to offer a variety of events throughout the year, and is especially interested in providing opportunities for business networking. Elections for the board of directors will take place later this year. Please contact Lindi von Mutius ’08 at lindi.vonmutius@flastergreenberg. com for additional information or to get involved. After years of meeting informally at events generously hosted by Jackie Brilling ’79, alumni in Albany and Saratoga, New York, have organized as an official regional alumni group. The goal of the group is to foster friendship and camaraderie among VLS alumni in the wide Capital District area. Some of the activities being discussed include a track day at Saratoga Race Track and ski day at a New York or Vermont ski mountain. Other events may include meetings at local pubs and a book club. The group discusses environmental issues pertinent to the local Albany/Saratoga area and provides job resources and advice to recently graduated alumni. The Albany/Capital District Alumni Association is hopeful that alumni in the area will contact Andy Purrott, Albany/Capital District VLSAA president, at apurrott@ gmail.com for more information. The addition of these two organizations brings the number of active regional alumni groups to five: Albany/Capital District, Boston, Delaware Valley, New York/ New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. If you

are interested in starting a regional alumni group in your area, please contact Kim Evans, event and alumni relations program coordinator, at kevans@vermontlaw. edu, or Clancy DeSmet MSEL’03/JD’06, chair, VLSAA Regional Groups Committee at clamjam22@yahoo.com.

REUNION 2010 Save the weekend of September 24–26. Welcoming the classes of 1980, 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005

1978 Kenneth Oliver has been a trial attorney with Finkelstein & Partners since 1983 and has helped his clients receive substantial judgments, including the largest awards in New York’s Dutchess and Orange counties at the time the verdicts were taken. Ken is an active member of his community and has been involved in many programs that assist people throughout Dutchess and Orange Counties. Because of their dedication, Ken and his wife have

For more information, contact alumni@vermontlaw.edu or 802-831-1325.

1976 Mark Gruber received the Professional Lawyer of the Year Award on October 22, 2009, from the New Jersey Commission on Professionalism in the Law.

Ken Oliver ’78

Mark Gruber ’76

Send us your notes at alumni@vermontlaw.edu

been honored as Couple of the Year by the Newburgh Jewish Community Center. In 2009 Ken was inducted into Global Who’s Who and Strathmore’s Who’s Who. He has also most recently been recognized by Martindale-Hubble as possessing very high legal and ethical standards. In January 2010, Ken was also inducted into Presidential Who’s Who, recognizing him as an attorney with exceptional accomplishments. In his free time, Ken enjoys scuba diving, sculpture, reading, cooking, and landscaping. Gerald D. Siegel has been certified by the New Jersey Supreme Court as a civil spring 2010 31

Class Notes

Gabor rona ’78 Human rights Watch in Counterterrorism

“There’s a sea change in perspective, with greater application of Geneva conventions and international law.”

32 loquitur

Gabor rona works on the front lines of human rights. As international legal director of Human rights First (HrF), he advises on international human rights and humanitarian law. He doubles as interim director of HrF’s law and security program, standing watch for human rights in u.S. counterterrorism policies and practices. Far from desk-bound in the NGo’s New York office, rona watched the obama inauguration while at Guantanamo, figuring—prematurely—he’d seen his last visit. He’s traveled to Bagram, Afghanistan, and heard detainees’ tales of torture and abuse at the u.S.-run detention center there. in a previous post at the Center for Constitutional rights in New York he pursued civil claims against Bosnian Serb leader radovan Karadzic and Haitian death-squad leaders for crimes against humanity. While at the international Committee of the red Cross in Geneva he inspected rwanda’s prisons and helped negotiate rules of Procedure and Evidence for the international Criminal Court. rona’s first exposure to human and civil rights problems came as a five-yearold refugee, when he and his Holocaustsurvivor parents escaped to Austria one night during their native Hungary’s 1956 uprising. They ultimately made their way to New York, where new conflicts were brewing. As rona explains, “the context of my formative years was Vietnam. i knew before law school that civil rights and human rights were going to be my guiding influences.” He took a chance on Vermont Law School—“right after its big bang, when the question was, ‘will it last?’”—

and found it difficult to study subjects he wasn’t going to use, like tax law. But, he says of his VLS training, “i’m absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do and the right place to do it.” His teachers made that the case. Emeritus Professor Ken Kreiling was a favorite. “He taught us how evidence works, the policy rules behind the rules. i knew i needed that to be an advocate.” rona continues, “Peter teachout was great. Constitutional Law lends itself to inquiry, and Peter emphasized critical thinking about the Constitution. He always talked about ‘the Scylla’ of this and ‘the Charybdis’ of that, and brought out legal and societal equities.” rona notes that today’s human rights and security issues remain difficult to navigate. “There’s a sea change in perspective, with greater application of Geneva conventions and international law,” he says. “However, this administration, like its predecessor, persists in the promiscuous assertion of defenses like the state secrets doctrine to prevent victims of torture and arbitrary detention from obtaining judicial remedies.” Still, HrF now enjoys more open working relationships with military leaders and the Justice and State departments. “You see the dysfunctional systems of Gitmo and Afghanistan firsthand, but you also have access to the people who make the decisions. For example, we worked hard convincing the administration not to seek legislation to authorize further administrative detentions—it was one of our important victories, and they’re very gratifying.”

Class Notes

trial lawyer, a distinction held by less than one percent of New Jersey attorneys. He is practicing in Plainsboro, New Jersey, halfway between New York City and Philly. He specializes in all personal injury matters. He does some criminal, real estate, and general practice. The rest of the Siegel family are also busy pursuing their individual interests—Gerald’s oldest son is sitting for the New Jersey bar exam, his daughter will be getting her doctorate in clinical psychology, his youngest son is a junior at Ohio State and will be applying to medical school, and his wife is in nursing school to become a registered nurse.

1980 30TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 2010 Ray “OB” Obuchowski was selected for inclusion in the 2010 edition of The Best Lawyers in America in the specialties of bankruptcy and creditor-debtor rights law and commercial litigation. In addition, he was elected to the board of directors of the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees (NABT) this fall. His election was quite timely, enabling Ray and his spouse, Marie, to attend the December winter board meeting held at Puerto Morales, Mexico. In the midst of their leaving the early Vermont winter weather, there were purportedly cries heard in the Vermont hills of “no shirt, no shoes . . . no problems.”

1981 Gary Medvigy is a state superior court judge sitting in Sonoma County, California, and invites anyone to stop by if they are travelling through the wine country. Medvigy is a private pilot and usually, with good weather, can offer a wine tour by air to friends! He is still serving in the Army Reserve as the commanding general of the 351st Civil Affairs Command in Mountain View, California, and has troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Steven Parady says, “With both kids gone to college, life is a little slower, although I was promoted to the head of First Advisors as the chief fiduciary and senior officer in early 2009. It has been a challenge in the financial world during the past two years, but our organization continues to grow. Hope to see many classmates at our 30th reunion next year.” Andrew B. Shaw is a partner in the law firm of Shaw and Roseman in Philadelphia. Ruth Littner Shaw works in economic development for the little municipality of Elkins Park. Andrew and Ruth have three (grown) children. He is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania, New York, and Florida. They send greetings to class members of ’81 and ’80! Larry Walters JD/MSEL is launching a new franchise company, www.drenergysaver.com. The company will be doing residential energy assessments and the retrofit repairs to save energy and money at home. They will start franchising soon and look forward to solid growth this year.

looking at schools. He’s interested in engineering, definitely not law! Hasn’t seen much to commend it from his perspective vis-à-vis his mom! Look for me on LinkedIn, Facebook, or on my website, www.gandjlaw.com.” Scott Johnston says, “I got in a few of my 15 minutes of fame prior to the posting of my obit by appearing in The New York Times business section in an article on the estate tax repeal.” You can find the article at: www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/ your-money/estate-planning/09wealth. html. Michele Ferland Kupersmith left her job at VLS after a year and a half due to the 148-mile round-trip commute. She says working with VLS students was a fabulous experience. She is reactivating her prior consulting business covering policy and politics, including expanding internship opportunities for Vermont students. Contact her at michelevt99@gmail.com.

1983 John and Janine Putnam are owners of organic Thistle Hill Farm in North Pomfret, Vermont. They and their artisanal cheeses were featured in an article in the November 2009 Martha Stewart Living magazine, and were interviewed on the Martha Stewart Show (there are links to the article and program at their website: www.ThistleHillFarm.com). They were also in Culture, Cheese Connoisseur, and All About Beer.

1982

Ray Obuchowski ’80 declares, “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!”

Lisa Jacobowitz reports, “No momentous changes here. Might be worth mentioning that I am trained as a mediator and a collaborative law practitioner. I much prefer those models in the family law forum to that of traditional litigation. Only other impending change is sending my son to college in 2011. We’re in the process of

Send us your notes at alumni@vermontlaw.edu

John and Janine Putnam ’83 at Thistle Hill Farm spring 2010 33

Class Notes

Edna Baugh ’83 Scholarship Launches a First-Generation Law Career “to whom much is given, much is required” is the saying that shapes Edna Baugh’s calendar. She sits on boards— often heading them—for a host of urban New Jersey organizations including legal services, a community college, and Girl Scouts, many of them gasping for breath in today’s economy. “it’s a lot of hard work, and sometimes it’s frustrating because there’s so much to accomplish,” she says. “But everyone has their way of giving back, and this is my way.” one of her give-backs is to Vermont Law School: she was the first African American woman to earn a JD there and is now vice president of the alumni association. “At VLS i learned how to trust myself—and that by applying myself, i could accomplish more than i had thought possible.” Neither of her parents had finished high school, and “they always assumed i would get a college education,” she says. Hanging around the house where her father worked as a chauffeur and her mother as a housekeeper, she found her career focus at age seven. “The father in the home where my parents worked often talked to me about his career as a lawyer. i decided that’s what i wanted to be, so i could help people like he did.” She received a BA in economics from Hartwick College in oneonta, New York, and “took a detour” for a while, trying out nursing school and working as an army clerk. Then she became a legal secretary and paralegal, and at age 30, encouraged

loquitur

“Everyone has their way of giving back, and this is my way.” by a VLS alumnus, she applied and was accepted with a scholarship at Vermont Law School. “i was stimulated, i was excited—i was now doing what i had wanted to do,” she says. in her time at VLS, she served on the curriculum committee and as a yearbook editor in addition to the work-study job she held. on graduation day, when the time came to give out the Alumni Association Award, which honors one student each year for their contribution to the Vermont Law School Community, “All of a sudden i heard my name. i’m like, ‘Me?!’ i was stunned, excited, thrilled and honored, in that order!”

After working for a New Jersey firm doing real estate transactions, she joined the City of East orange—her home town—in 1986 as assistant counsel. Her duties included representing the tax collector and tax assessor in court, and that expertise carried her to a private firm in 1992. in 2000, she and her former East orange boss joined forces to start Stephens & Baugh, LLC, in Maplewood, New Jersey, where she specializes in real estate property tax appeals and transactional real estate. “i hope that one day we become the largest minority law firm in New Jersey—another lofty goal!” she says. She also works as the assistant director for clinic administration for rutgers School of Law in Newark, overseeing activities in clinics that deal with civil, criminal, tax, child advocacy, and community law. She sits on the Essex County College Foundation Board, the Garden State Bar Association (an African American organization), the county Legal Services Board, the state’s Supreme Court Disciplinary review Board, and this october will join the Vermont Law School Board of trustees. She lives in the century-old Colonial house in East orange that she grew up in and “yes, there is a special someone,” she chuckles. When she has time, she takes Caribbean cruises and vacations on the Jersey Shore.

Class Notes

1985 25TH REUNION MAY 2010 John Mercer, chair of Williams Mullen’s financial services and real estate section in Richmond, Virginia, has been elected to the board of directors at the firm. His term began on February 1, 2010. John’s practice involves all areas of commercial real estate, and he has extensive experience in connection with the acquisition, financing, leasing, and development of commercial property throughout the mid-Atlantic region and other parts of the United States. John assists regional and national landlords and tenants with the negotiation and preparation of complex office, retail, and industrial leases on a regular basis. He also serves as outside real estate counsel for several publicly traded companies.

1986 Dr. Rosemarie Russo published a book entitled Jumping from the Ivory Tower: Promoting Environmental Leadership and Sustainable Communities. In her book, she argues that integrating environmental education, service learning, and a placebased focus provides an effective approach for solving pressing environmental problems and advancing the civic development of students. Rosemarie teaches at the University of Colorado-Boulder and serves as the sustainability coordinator for the City of Fort Collins. She has been an environmental chair and dean, has worked on Superfund sites, and has taught abroad in Central America.

during the 2009 Annual Meeting of the College in Boston, Massachusetts. Robert is the Windsor County state’s attorney and a visiting associate professor of criminal law at Vermont Law School. Mike and Lauren Williams, married 22 years, reside in Pennington, New Jersey, with their daughter Caitlin, 17, a junior in high school. Their son Jared, 20, is a 2d class midshipman (junior) at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Lauren currently works for a small general practice law firm in Princeton, and Mike is deputy chief of the Appellate Bureau in the Division of Criminal Justice, New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, in Trenton. They still visit Vermont several times every year.

1988 Jan Simonsen is now a partner with Carr Maloney in Washington, D.C. Jan litigates matters involving professional liability, product liability, complex general liability claims, premises liability claims, and commercial litigation. Jan represents several large retailers as well as other large business entities. With respect to product

1989 John Beiers is a chief deputy county counsel for San Mateo County in Redwood City, California. He and his wife Beth have three kids and live in San Carlos, just below San Francisco. John runs too many marathons, and still plays an occasional game of Ultimate Frisbee (and pays dearly for it later). Suzanne Blanchard has joined the Smart Growth Vermont team as program director. Prior to joining Smart Growth Vermont, after practicing environmental law for a decade in Washington, D.C. and Princeton, New Jersey, Suzanne was an editor and consultant.

1990 20TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 2010

1987 Robert L. Sand has become a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, one of the premier legal associations in America. The induction ceremony took place before an audience of approximately 974 persons

liability work, Jan was involved in multimillion dollar litigation involving fly ash in Richmond, Virginia, that ultimately resolved to the client’s great satisfaction. She has been involved in many product liability cases involving large machinery including cement mixers, boilers, conveyer belts, yachts, as well as a multiclaim case involving tainted food from a large gourmet retailer in the Metropolitan Washington area. Jan was named one of Washington, D.C.’s Best Lawyers in Personal Injury Litigation by the Washington Post.

Jan Simonsen ’88

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David Abbott and Lynn Coccoli Abbott ’88 continue to live in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, with their two daughters, Hannah (15) and Emily (12). Dave is the deputy commissioner and general counsel for the Rhode Island Department of Education; Lynn practices out of the local firm of Martineau Davis and Associates. Hannah and Emily are both very active soccer players, which makes for a busy interstate—and occasionally spring 2010 35

Class Notes

international—travel schedule. Gina Cannon is now a full time stay at home mom, with her child Sarah, and enjoying every minute of her bundle of joy. She started the first-of-its-kind private guardianship business offering guardianships to incapacitated adults. The New Hampshire legislature actually passed a law officially creating her business.

Mario and has already developed two projects in which Mario is the talent. The first show is a docu-drama based upon his life as a criminal defense attorney in New York and the other is a cooking show in which he resolves problems for families around the dinner table. He and Tony Hernandez were both guests on the NBC Today show in the same week on two separate criminal cases—Tony on a Florida matter and Mario on a New York matter. Terry Monroe got married and now has two children, which has extended his retirement by 16 years. Lisa Stone is now a certified mediator and collaborative divorce attorney. She is living in Pennsylvania and enjoying life without litigation.

William Clarke II ’90

1991

William E. M. Clarke II graduated Vermont Law School, passed the Boston bar exam, and practiced in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts. William has dual citizenship and settled in London after travelling throughout Europe. He is associated with the Head of the Department of Education at the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, where barristers are schooled and readied for the Bench. Lynn Felici-Gallant left the active practice of law over 12 years ago to pursue a career in horticulture, garden design, and garden writing. She owns Indigo Gardens LLC, a design and marketing company in New Hampshire. She recently reactivated her law practice, and accepted a position as coeditor of Coastal Home Magazine, a home, garden and lifestyle publication covering northern New England seacoast communities. She is happily married to Paul Gallant, a mason and general manager of a stone supply company, and the couple lives with their spirited golden cat on five acres overlooking the Lamprey River. Mario Gallucci was signed to a hold agreement by NBC Universal Peacock Productions. Peacock is working with 36 loquitur

David Mears traveled to China in December with his wife, Nancy. The trip was organized by Vermont Law School’s U.S.-China Partnership for the Environment. David lectured at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou on environmental law in the U.S. and on citizen enforcement of environmental laws. He also led workshops in Beijing and Guangzhou relating to the establishment of environmental law clinics at Chinese law schools. Nancy scouted for possible housing and schools for the year abroad that they hope to take if David is successful in obtaining a Fulbright Scholarship to teach environmental law at a Chinese law school.

1992 Rick Ammons is still practicing law as a public defender in Brattleboro, Vermont. Rick says “over the years, I have tried out a variety of legal work scenarios—civil litigation on the plaintiff and defense side, family law, and (as a law school intern and clerk) I started off with administrative law at the Vermont Agency of Natural

Resources. None of it was as satisfying, for me, as representing a single person in trouble—and often being the only voice in support of that person in the well of a courtroom. As John Gardner, one of the assistant United States attorneys in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Portland, Maine, said to me during my Semester in Practice there (last semester at VLS), standing up and advocating a position in court is at the heart of practicing law and being a lawyer.’ He advised me to become a prosecutor or public defender after graduating. After the above-mentioned detours, I took his advice—and while the ‘job’ of public defender is sometimes a bit much to bear, the work itself is awesome.” Rick’s other gig is, as ever, playing his guitar and singing. He is currently playing in an acoustic duo with his girlfriend of three years. You can see them on their website at www. rickandtheredhead.com. John Batherson has been working as a federal attorney in Washington, D.C., for the past eight years. He works in the general counsel’s office of a defense-related agency doing national security law. John Beiswenger wins the “go out and do good award” for our class. He gave peripheral blood stem cells to a patient with leukemia where he was the only available matching donor. Most likely, the patient would have died if John had not volunteered to be in the registry. More information is available at www.marrow. org if anyone is interested in joining the “Be the Match” registry. Dan Fitzsimmons is living in his hometown of Watkins Glen, New York, with wife, Dorothy, and kids, Connor (18), Rowan (15), and Will (11). “When unable to find something better to do, my law practice involves children’s law, civil rights, and a smattering of other things. My wife, Dorothy, works part time in the office while finishing her first novel. When she finishes, I am going to write one. Spent the last four years building a beautiful straw-bale house equipped with solar collectors and brimming with envi-

Class Notes

ronmental snootiness. Done some fun things; spent my 40th birthday at the Arctic Circle, spent Christmas 2008 on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico with my family and Ian Stone and his son Cooper. Our family will spend spring of 2011 in Malawi, Africa, caring for AIDS orphans at the Malawi Children’s Village.” Dan recently hired a VLS grad, Alan Benedict ’09. Mary Fletcher says, “In November 2007 I went for a ‘walkabout’ then a sabbatical. Now I have joined my brother in the practice of law. We are still creating the new firm, but our office is located in Arlington, Virginia. You are probably more interested in the walkabout—first, I hit Mexico to visit friends in Merida, then to Belize to visit more friends. Flew to Placencia, Belize, in the smallest plane I have ever been in, then on to Peru where my brother and I hiked the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu . . . now that was a treasure of an experience . . . ever hear the sound of quiet? You can hear hummingbirds. Then on to the Panama Canal and Costa Rica. Back to New Jersey in time for the holidays. Then an unexpected trip to Captiva Island, Florida, where I worked for a real estate company doing a bit of legal work along with vacation rentals and property management. I have been in Arlington for about two months and I live in a great area and work is great. Margaret Waldock and Carole Wacey just visited for a weekend. They are doing well in life and work— Margaret runs the Hunterdon County Land Trust in New Jersey and Carole runs MOUSE in New York.” Leslie Fourton was the lead attorney for Null et al. v. FDA et al., a case in which six New Yorkers and several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) filed for an emergency injunction in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the distribution of the Swine Flu 2009 H1N1 live virus nasal mist vaccine to 90,000 government-approved locations nationwide. Kristine McDonald is in general practice and has been at the same firm since

1993. She says “It’s a fun job. I don’t make nearly as much money as I should, but I like being a lawyer most of the time. I split my work time between my office in Vineyard Haven and our main office in Brockton, Massachusetts. I’m happy. My husband is really nice and I have a great stepdaughter. We live on Martha’s Vineyard and we don’t do triathlons or mountain bike but we like sailing, swimming, clamming, fishing, and cooking. Last spring Debbie Kerzner and I went to hear Ian Stone argue a case before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. You would have been proud. He was masterful.” Will Osburn is back from his last deployment to Iraq. He hopes he won’t be in Afghanistan for the cotillion season. Jessica Oski recently joined fellow VLS alum at the Burlington firm of Shems Dunkiel Raubvogel & Saunders. Jessica joined the firm as “of counsel.” Her practice will focus on health care law, corporate counsel and municipal law. Wyndy Rausenberger has worked in the Mineral Resources Division of the Solicitor’s Office at the Department of the Interior in D.C. since 2000. “I love the work—it is more interesting than just litigation, but also frustrating and at times political (hate that part). I did oil and gas law (coal bed methane) for years, but now I do geothermal energy on the public lands and offshore wind energy. I’ve been married to Adam Issenberg since 2005; we have two boys—Elessar Micah ‘Mickey’

Issenberg/Rausenberger family in hot springs near Albuquerque after a climb not recommended for small children

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is almost four and Leander Zane is 19 months. One doesn’t eat or sleep and the other (the ‘little’ guy by five pounds) beats up on his big brother; we are in the throes of potty training and of chasing kids right now—thus we need a man-to-man defense all the time. We still love outdoor stuff like cycling, skiing, camping, rock climbing, and orienteering. We do get up to Vermont at least once or twice a year.” A.J. Ruben was a public defender for nine years and has been at Disability Rights Vermont (DRVT—formerly Vermont Protection and Advocacy) for the past 7 years as the supervising attorney. “We are a nonprofit, federally funded, and authorized disability advocacy and watchdog agency empowered to conduct investigations and litigation on behalf of people with disabilities who are subject to abuse, neglect, or serious rights violations. My wife, Becca, and I started our local food co-op 15 years ago, and she continues to work there in various capacities. We have two kids, one in middle school and one in elementary school, both happy and healthy. We live deep in the mountains of Pittsfield where we’ve had recent encounters with a large bear and this last summer with a real catamount. I’m on the rescue squad and the school board. We’ve recently built a small art studio/garage where Becca is spending a lot of time throwing pots. My hair is getting very gray, but I’m not too worried, my wife says it adds character!” Tim Shea is a partner at the firm of Certilman Balin LLP, specializing in land use and zoning. Anthony Smith and his wife and two children live in Portland, Oregon. “Though I’m still a member of the New York and Vermont Bar Associations, my current job is as a manager within IBM responsible for the deployment of large IBM data warehouse systems. I still get out on occasion to ski, kayak, hike, bike, etc., but mostly I work. However, I had an epic ski day on Mt. Hood this winter that the Daves (Venman and Edwards) would be proud of. My beard is gray, my spring 2010 37

Class Notes

Lyle Glowka ’92 From VLS to the united Nations Just two decades ago, millions of tapirnosed Saiga antelope roamed the Central Asian steppes, their vast numbers stretching out to the horizon. But with the collapse of the Soviet union came the collapse of the herds: local people, thrust into abject poverty, shot the goat-sized Saiga to harvest their horns for a traditional Chinese medicine sought by a booming Chinese market. By 1992, fewer than 40,000 Saiga remained, and extinction loomed. Enter Lyle Glowka, agreements officer of the united Nation’s Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS). it took four years of persistent work, but one day in 2006, Glowka gathered at one table representatives of the “range countries,” international NGos, and individual scientists. The result was a memorandum of understanding and action plan in which the range countries agreed to ban Saiga hunting and conserve habitat. in exchange, they received money to train and equip wildlife wardens. international NGos have redoubled their efforts since the agreement was concluded and China has promised to work with the range countries. today, the numbers of Saiga have stabilized. The case is emblematic of Glowka’s career: he is skilled at creating international agreements among countries to conserve biodiversity and fairly distribute the benefits. “i like looking at scientific and technical issues to craft legal and policy approaches by which they can be addressed,” he says. He has ferreted out major issues: in 1995, for example, he wrote a seminal paper pointing out that the most lucrative deep-seabed resources are not mineral but genetic—the micro-organisms brewed in the extreme environment

loquitur

of undersea volcanoes—and he advocated international accords to ensure their fair and equitable use. today, the issue is on the agenda of the uN General Assembly. Glowka studied botany and microbiology at Connecticut College, pursued molecular genetics at the university of Connecticut, and worked three years for the Army Corps of Engineers on dredging and wetlands regulation before heading to VLS. “The VLS program was innovative and the student body was motivated— and living in South royalton was idyllic, quiet, and focused,” he says. While working toward his JD, he took advantage of an opportunity to go abroad and spent one year in Nairobi working pro bono for the united Nations Environment Program on the negotiations of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) global treaty concluded in 1992 at the rio Earth Summit: “it opened my eyes to the socioeconomic context of biodiversity issues, which captivated my interest,” he says. two weeks after graduation, he joined the international union for the Conservation of Nature’s Environmental Law Center in Bonn. in 1994, he wrote a straightforward guide to the CBD. it was printed in seven languages with 25,000 copies in circulation; even today, lawyers and scientists tell him how important it is to their understanding of the convention’s implementation. During six years at CMS, his next job, Glowka forged agreements to protect the whales and dolphins of the Pacific and the migratory water birds of Central Asia, among other species. in 2007, he became senior legal advisor to the CBD Secretariat, based in Montreal. He is currently supporting the negotiation of a complicated

“The rio Earth Summit opened my eyes to the socioeconomic context of biodiversity issues.” and politically contentious international treaty facilitating access to and guaranteeing fair and equitable benefit sharing from genetic resources. Glowka and his German-born wife, Petra, a home economics teacher, enjoy cross-country skiing, kayaking, and hiking. Living in the Montreal area gives him the opportunity to visit nearby Vermont. He recently lectured at VLS and was impressed by its size and sophistication and how course offerings have exploded compared to his years there. “if you can get to where i am from a much smaller start, VLS students today will be able to have an even greater impact,” he predicts.

Class Notes

hair gone, my belly that much bigger. Life though has been good and I often think of the old gang and hope everyone is doing well.” Dave Venman says, “Doing well, working with my wife, Sandra Lee ’95, two kids, Ethan (9) and Sophie (6), and living in Heaven on Earth in Lincoln, Vermont. Skiing, biking, hiking, river, mountains . . . what could be better?” Margaret Waldock haphazardly landed in a fantastic small town on the banks of the mighty Delaware River in New Jersey and is happy to report that, despite popular opinion and disparaging reality television shows, it’s a swell place to live. “My work as executive director of a county-wide land trust leads me to the special places of this corner of the state and I regularly see bald eagles soaring above my little town. My organization started a very successful farmer’s market for local growers, part of our ongoing efforts to keep the garden in the Garden State, and we are currently in process of preserving over 1,000 acres of forest and farmland in our county. Just spent time with Carole Wacey, Fred Zeytoonjian, and Mary Fletcher down in D.C., and I am planning a trip to Vermont this year because it’s been too darn long.” Joanne (Sather) Wechsler is living in Jericho, Vermont, and working at a Vermont Family Network, supporting families whose children have special needs/ disabilities. “We help families in special education and in health, offer trainings and Sibshops (workshops for siblings of children with special needs), have a respite program, offer direct service for children from infancy through age 3, and promote advocacy around rights and services for persons with disabilities. After having a child diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, I couldn’t imagine working in any other environment. Adam, my 13-year-old, will be going off to high school next year. My ten-year-old loves sports and has turned me into a hockey mom (not one who wears lipstick, but a real hockey mom).

Winter sports help the long winters pass. Husband David is working for an environmental consulting firm, with a focus on indoor air quality. Also in the family are two goldens, Sierra and Denali; and two kitties, Rocky and Hobbes.” Fred Zeytoonjian writes, “I started a new job in January with the Pew Charitable Trusts as the manager for strategic partnerships for the Pew Center on the States. I’m living in Alexandria, Virginia, with my wife, Karen Sosnoski, daughter, Forester (7), and son, Anton (5). This past fall, I captained a D.C. Ragnar Relay Team with 11 other teammates, including classmate Chris Lynch and Joanne (Loercher) Jordan ’90, for a 28-hour 200mile running relay from Cumberland, Maryland, to Washington, D.C. For the second year in a row we trampled all competitors and won first place in the master’s division. This fall we plan to run the Reach the Beach Relay in New Hampshire from Cannon Mountain to Hampton Beach State Park to raise funds for Alzheimer’s research.”

1993 Alan Strasser was a panelist at the American Bar Association Administrative Law and Regulatory National Meeting in Washington, D.C. on October 23, 2009, on The Administrative Procedure Implications of Climate Change. Alan, who helped design the panel with Professor Sidney Shapiro of Wake Forest University, was asked to kick off the discussion by outlining the challenge of the “rulemaking bottleneck” in effectuating prompt and reliable emissions reductions. He continues to coordinate with a broad group of stakeholders interested in expediting greenhouse gas policy development and private standards. For Alan’s video clip see: www. vicfx.com/GHG/Version_9.html. Alan, who is learning Portuguese and having a great life with Cristina, can be reached at aws11@comcast.net.

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1994 Bret Campbell was elected partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, one of the world’s leading international law firms, effective January 1, 2010. Bret represents clients in a broad range of complex criminal, regulatory, and civil litigation matters, including international corruption (involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), money laundering, commercial fraud, securities, export control, economic sanction, and related issues. He conducts internal investigations, advises clients on corporate governance issues, counsels on the implementation of compliance codes, and advises and conducts due diligence reviews in connection with mergers, acquisitions, and other complex corporate transactions. Bret has represented U.S. and foreign pharmaceutical, energy, telecommunications, financial services, aerospace, and defense companies. He has defended clients in connection with commercial fraud actions in various federal courts; and represented financial services firms and individuals in New York Stock Exchange Disciplinary Hearings, Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions, and related civil litigation. Paul W. Garrity has joined the New York office of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP as a partner in the firm’s intellectual property practice group. Garrity was previously a partner at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP in New York. He specializes in intellectual property litigation. Carole Gaudet MSEL launched her marketing and communications business, www.CaroleGaudet.com—Clear Writing For Clean Energy, about one year ago, and has been astounded by the response. She has created marketing materials, web copy, reports, and case studies for companies, nonprofits, and government entities involved with clean energy and clean technology. She collaborates with branding, design, and public relations firms and has worked with some great spring 2010 39

Class Notes

companies, both established and start-up. She loves the work of delivering succinct, intelligent content to help clean energy gain ground every day. Best of all, she lives at home in Woodstock, Vermont, with her two children and she hasn’t missed a seventh-grade basketball game or a school play once this year. Joe Minadeo JD’94/MSEL’95 is living in Baton Rouge and working as an attorney for The Dow Chemical Company. Joe continues to focus on environmental, health, and safety matters, supporting Dow manufacturing sites throughout the United States.

Institute at Molloy College. The group works on clean energy issues for the region, especially focusing on municipalities. Beth also does public education presentations on green living and reducing toxins in our daily environment. Last year Beth was chosen as one of Long Island’s Top 40 Under 40 and was on the board of the local chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. Joe McCaleb MSEL and his wife have built a new home on 15 acres of woods and meadow in middle Tennessee, 45 miles southwest of Nashville. Taking advantage of the energy tax credits, Joe and Glenda built a “green” home complete with a solar panel in the meadow. “It is a small solar system,” Joe comments, “but it is something we can add to in three to five years. Additionally, our home is in the woods, literally, so we have plenty of shade and natural cooling in the summer months, which are getting hotter and lasting longer in Tennessee.” Joe moved his law office into his new home and continues his environmental law practice, but he plans to retire next year and “spend days, rain or shine, outdoors and in the woods.” Joe received his JD from the University of Memphis Law School in January 1970. Heather (Carll) Toulmin rejoices in the birth of baby Seth, born in April of 2009! Heather is working part-time as a child and family therapist and finding community in Lyme, New Hampshire.

run sharing teaching duties for Genetics and Law last semester they have turned me loose to teach Bioethics and Law (pause for the jokes about lawyers and ethics) all on my own this semester—yes, the students do pay for this! I have infinitely more respect for every faculty member who has ever taught me, as it takes a ridiculous amount of time to prepare for these classes! Meanwhile, my day job as corporate counsel and vice president of business development for Diaceutics, a consulting company specializing in personalized medicine (you will have to be in touch to find out what that is!) continues unabated—I recently added up all of the air miles I have earned and it came out to something ridiculous like 400,000! Sadly, I have little interest in getting on a plane to go anywhere in what spare time I have (although I am thinking about an extended visit to Cambodia this summer). I still manage to get time in to train and run triathlons, mostly Olympic distance but a few half irons every year. (I figure if I do two half irons that counts as one full!) I am lucky enough to have down-time between semesters and a job I can do from anywhere so I spent this winter break in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, perfecting my skiing fall and après ski bicep curl! I continue to get back to Washington, D.C., as often as possible, mostly because I have not been able to rent out my apartment, so I figure I might as well use the place.”

1995

1996

1997

15TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 2010

Karen Hill MSEL bought a farm and moved to Arkansas where she and her husband, Mark Garner, are raising heritage livestock. See www.garnerhillfarm.com. Mollie Roth is still out in the eternal land of sunshine and ginormous lifted pick-up trucks that is Tempe, Arizona! “I have managed to retain my title of visiting faculty fellow in the Center for Law, Science and Innovation at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, and after a test

Courtney Flanagan got married last November to Aaron Lowen, a professor at Grand Valley State University. She now is not only a stepmother to two but is also acting as a House Mom at Alpha Phi sorority at Western Michigan University while her husband is out of the country on sabbatical. Courtney changed jobs in 2009 and is now supervising a Michigan auto insurance program. She’s still waiting for her sabbatical.

Carole Gaudet MSEL’94

Peter Cooper recently formed Cilenti & Cooper, PLLC, a boutique plaintiff’s employment law practice in New York City (www.jcpclaw.com). Beth Fiteni reports that after having worked for a nonprofit environmental organization on Long Island for the past nine years, her group was “absorbed” by a local college to form the Sustainability 40 loquitur

Class Notes

Joseph D. Jean has recently been elected special counsel at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman. Joseph represents large and small clients in all forms of litigation, alternative dispute resolution, and appraisal hearings, with a particular focus on insurance coverage matters and complex commercial litigation. Anthony Raimondo is a partner at McCormick, Barstow, Sheppard, Wayte & Carruth, in Fresno, California. He successfully argued Arias v. Superior Court before the California Supreme Court. The Court’s decision, issued in July 2009, provides important guidance in the procedures applicable to class and representative litigation in California.

1998

County and the board of trustees of the Chesterfield Public School Foundation. Ann Toohey and Jeffrey Sisson were married Saturday, August 8, 2009, at National Harbor, Maryland, in a ceremony overlooking the Potomac River. A New England clambake reception for family and friends followed. Ann is currently an attorney with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. Wynona Ward, founder of Have Justice–Will Travel, which provides free legal and support services to women and children who are victims of domestic violence in rural Vermont, was named the first CNN Hero for 2010 and appeared on Larry King Live on January 7, 2010. The CNN story and video is available at www. vermontlaw.edu/WardCNNHero.

Timothy E. Copeland Jr., a director at Downs Rachlin Martin PLLC in Brattleboro, Vermont, was recognized in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers 2009. Selection for inclusion in the prestigious legal directory is based on Chambers’ extensive research, including peer and client evaluations. Copeland focuses his practice in the area of labor and employment law, providing advice and representation to management clients on all aspects of their relationships with employees. He serves on the board of directors of the United Way of Windham

Nicole Alt ’98, Sally Carter ’98, Heather Bowman ’98, Deb Celis ’98, Emily Celis, Chris Thompson ’98, Jeff Sisson, Ann Toohey ’98 (the beautiful bride!), Alexa Cole ’98, Angie Essary ’98, Laurice Jones ’98, Elizabeth MacDonough ’98

began as a fellow in the fall term where he supervised law students working on climate change and other environmental projects. Before joining HLS, Kevin spent seven years as an assistant attorney general in the environmental division of the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, where he became one of the state’s premier global warming and clean air law experts. He has also argued Vermont Supreme Court appeals and served as a U.S. Supreme Court Fellow for the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington, D.C. Kevin Tompsett was elected partner at Harris Beach PLLC as of January 1, 2010.

2000 10TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 2010 Eric Collins and his wife are happy to announce the birth of their first child, Jack Brady Collins. Jennifer Daks MSEL is now Jennifer Lee. She is married and has an organic sheep and cattle farm in Ireland with her husband. Visit their website at www.celtictable.com. Jack Jacobs recently founded a boutique law firm called Cleantech Law Partners that caters to the unique legal needs of renewable energy and cleantech companies. For more information about the firm, please visit: www.cleantechlawpartners. com.

Josh Laison and Stephania Fregosi MSEL’99 with their daughter, Sasha

2002

1999

Stephen Smith is a partner at Smith, Maurras, Cohen, Redd & Horan PLC in Fort Smith, Arkansas. He married Mindy Ewing in November 2006.

Sasha Julia Fregosi Laison was born August 4, 2009, to Stephania Fregosi MSEL and Josh Laison in Salem, Oregon. Kevin O. Leske JD/MSEL has joined Harvard Law School’s Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. He

Send us your notes at alumni@vermontlaw.edu

2003 Shannon (Maher) Bañaga was promoted spring 2010 41

Class Notes

Shannon Bañaga ’03 and husband, Vince, with their new baby boy, Colton to senior associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP. She continues to practice energy law before federal agencies such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. On January 31, 2010, Shannon and her husband, Vince, welcomed their new addition into the world—Colton. Clocking in at 7 lb., 10 oz., and 20 in., it appears we may have another rugby player on our hands! Richard Bianculli recently accepted a position as legal counsel with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. VLSers should give him a shout if they’re ever in the Providence area: richard.bianculli@dem.ri.gov. Tom Blatchley was recently named to the Connecticut Rising Stars list for 2010, as published in the November 2009 issue of New England Super Lawyers magazine and the February 2010 issue of Connecticut magazine. Tom received the same award in 2009. Tom also was reappointed to the executive committee of the Connecticut Bar Association Young Lawyers Section for the 2009–2010 term. He has held that position since 2005 and currently cochairs the Environmental Law Committee, formerly chairing/cochairing the Environmental and Land Use Law Committee. Tom is an associate at Halloran & Sage LLP in the firm’s Hartford, Connecticut 42 loquitur

office, and has worked in its Environmental and Land Use Practice Group since his summer associate stint as a 2L. He met his wife, Aubrey, at H&S. She has since joined an international law firm where she practices complex commercial litigation and insurance coverage law. Sarah Gordon was recently promoted to vice president of legal affairs for the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans (MAHP), a trade association that represents health plans in Massachusetts. Sarah coordinates MAHP’s government affairs program, oversees all issues relating to Medicaid, serves on state boards and councils, and serves as MAHP’s general counsel. Lucy Joramo is enjoying her new life as Lucy McCarthy. She and husband Kevin welcomed a squirmy and lovely girl, Harper Francis McCarthy, on September 26, 2009. She continues her work as a public defender in Bennington, Vermont— despite lack of sleep. Josh Minges got married on September 5, 2009, to Allison Swygert (now Allison Minges). They are living in Columbia, South Carolina, and Josh is working as

an attorney at the South Carolina Public Service Commission, focusing on energy issues. Erin Gerald Minks and Matthew Alan Hildner were married September 19, 2009, at the Gilmore Ranch outside Alamosa, Colorado, with Greg Cheyne officiating. Erin is the San Luis Valley regional director for U.S. Representative John Salazar, D-Colorado. Matt is a reporter for the Pueblo Chieftain. The newlyweds live in Alamosa, Colorado. Darren Misenko joined Fead Construction Law PLC of South Burlington in September 2009, where he continues to develop a specialized practice in the areas of construction law and green building. Prior to joining Fead Construction Law, Darren served as co-owner, general counsel, and construction project manager of a full-service construction management and general contracting business based in central New York. Noted for its construction law achievements, Fead Construction Law represents clients in matters ranging from contract negotiation to claims resolution involving commercial construction projects. Darren lives in Duxbury, Vermont, with his wife, Stacey Misenko, and their two sons. Michael Winters and Abigail Doolittle ’05 were married in Vergennes, Vermont, on June 20, 2009. See note in 2005 section.

2004

Erin Minks ’03 with husband, Matthew Alan Hildner

Mackenzie Royce is the executive director of Bluegrass Conservancy, a private, nonprofit land trust in the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky. The land trust is celebrating a recent milestone of over 10,000 acres permanently protected with conservation easements. These conservation easements cover a geographic expanse of history-laced land, from the family farm of Kentucky’s first and fifth governor, Isaac Shelby, to the birthplace of 2009’s successful and celebrated thoroughbred Rachel

Class Notes

Alexandra—one of only three fillies to ever win The Eclipse Award’s Horse of the Year. Parcels range in size from 5 acres to 700 acres and build a critical mass of conserved properties, which save the region’s cultural landscape designated in 2006 by World Monuments Fund experts as one of the world’s most endangered sites. The conservancy’s protected land contributes to the local economy, reduces the cost of community services, and honors the Bluegrass Region’s uniquely branded and world-renowned equine industry. No public dollars are spent on these conservation easements that also cover extensive scenic road frontage, geologic formations, water sources, key soils, forests, wildlife habitat, and historic resources.

2005 5TH REUNION SEPTEMBER 2010 Derek Durbin and Viviana (Jimenez) Durbin opened Durbin Law Offices PLLC (www.durbinlawoffices.com) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in December 2009. Derek is focusing his practice in land use, real estate, and environmental law, while Viviana will be concentrating much of her time in civil litigation and family law. Steve Kelton wrote a chapter for the American Bar Association’s recently published book, Green Building and Sustainable Development. The chapter is entitled “Practicing What You Preach: Creating a Sustainable Law Office,” and gives law firms a 10-step process for bringing green practices into the office. Amy Manzelli and Chad Turmelle welcomed their first child, Henry Manzelli Turmelle, on November 18, 2009. Although Henry was over 7 weeks early, all are well. Cielo Marie Mendoza MSEL’02/ JD’05 has accepted a litigation position with the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.

Dominador V. Pascual is a city administrative law judge (CALJ) at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Dom is a member of the National Association of the Administrative Law Judiciary (NAALJ). He has oversight over one of the nation’s largest Section 8 programs. Dom presides over hearings and adjudicates over appealed agency decisions. These hearings involve issues regarding: fraud, corruption, drug activity, administering social services and eligibility determinations. Natalie Mencia ’10 will join the HPD Appeals Unit this spring as a law clerk. She will be drafting comprehensive legal opinions and assisting with administrative proceedings. Also, she will be involved in HPD’s Green Affordable Housing Initiatives. Natalie is pursuing a career in real estate development in the New York City metropolitan area upon graduation. Kimberly S. Reid writes, “I have started off this year opening my own firm in Olympia, Washington. My practice is mainly family law, specifically with a focus on representing victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence in domestic violence orders of protection as well as dissolutions, paternity actions, and the like. I am very excited about this venture. I look forward to seeing everyone this September at our reunion!” Abigail Winters, formerly Abigail Doolittle, and Michael Winters ’03 were

Abigail ’05 and Michael ’03 Winters’ wedding ceremony, officiated by Leslie Staudinger, on June 20, 2009

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married in Vergennes, Vermont on June 20, 2009. Their wedding officiant was none other than the enchanting Leslie Staudinger, special projects coordinator at VLS. Abigail and Michael are living the maple-sweetened good life in their cabin in Randolph Center, Vermont. Abigail practices labor law, representing unionized state employees as associate general counsel for the Vermont State Employees’ Association in Montpelier, Vermont. Michael is a partner in the firm of Marsh Wagner & Winters PC, with offices in Middlebury and Rochester, Vermont. He specializes in criminal defense, family law, and real estate.

2006 Gavin Boyles has joined the Paul Frank + Collins property and development and environmental and litigation teams as an associate attorney. Boyles’ practice focuses on environmental law, land use, real estate, and construction law. Boyles worked for three years as law clerk to Chief Justice Paul L. Reiber of the Vermont Supreme Court and worked at the VLS Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic during his 1L summer. Ashley Carson was recently invited to speak on Capitol Hill about the importance of Social Security policy. The event, “Demystifying the Deficit, Social Security Finances and Commissions,” was sponsored by The National Academy of Social Insurance. Ashley is the executive director of OWL—The Voice of Midlife and Older Women, based in Washington, D.C. Timothy Corso writes, “I am currently deployed to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. I serve as an Assistant Regional Security Officer for the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). When I complete my tour in April, I’ll be moving with my family to Morocco to serve at the U.S. Embassy in Rabat. I’d also like to let you know that my wife, Tamara Murdock-Corso, and I had a baby. Arianna spring 2010 43

Class Notes

Allison (Bellins) Dennis MSEL’05 Green Power for the EPA

“i’m working with partners that have a real financial stake in what happens. i’m helping to educate corporations as to how to best position themselves for the future.”

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Kohl’s Department Stores, a major department store chain, and Whole Foods Market, the world’s largest retailer of natural and organic foods, are in a neck-and-neck race to outdo one another—and not over revenues. instead, these two major u.S. businesses, and many others like them, would each like to hold the number one spot for voluntary annual green power usage—and all to the benefit of a cleaner environment and increased use of renewable energy nationwide. Allison Dennis is one of the prime movers behind these initiatives. Dennis is communications director for the u.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership (GPP), a voluntary program that encourages governments, educational institutions, and businesses of all sizes to use renewable power sources. it does so by focusing on the barriers to adoption of green power and by providing recognition for environmental leadership. That includes publicizing the National top 50 Purchasers List: a tally of the partnership’s leading purchasers. “At one point, we’d have Kohl’s on the phone one day, and Whole Foods the next, saying, ‘Who’s ahead?’ Finally, Kohl’s upped their green power to 50 percent. it makes our day when our list creates that kind of competition.” And the numbers tell the story. GPP works with more than 1,200 organizations, 300 of whom joined under Dennis’s watch. over the past year, despite the 2009 economic recession, the top 10 GPP partners increased their voluntary commitments by more than 1.5 billion kilowatt-hours. overall, EPA Green Power Partners are buying nearly 18 billion kWh

of clean power annually, equivalent to the annual carbon dioxide emissions from more than 1.6 million average American homes. That’s about the same number of homes in Phoenix, Arizona. Dennis handles publicity, recruiting, and media outreach. She also sits on EPA’s Work Group for green building, serving as a voice for renewable energy, and contributes to the work of other organizations, helping to influence renewable energy standards. How did VLS influence Dennis’s career path? “The first class in Energy Law and regulation sparked my interest in renewables. And the MSEL course in environmental writing enabled me to understand judicial opinions and get a grasp on the background and history of an issue. That gives me an upper hand at EPA and when communicating with the press.” Dennis says the MSEL gave her a deep understanding of environmental laws and policies, and the ability to better communicate issues to nonlawyers and people who don’t work in those fields. Back in Washington, where “the VLS ‘brand’ is well known and respected,” Dennis is excited about the huge potential of voluntary programs like GPP. Mandatory programs are significant, she says, but there is always something companies can do that goes beyond what’s required by law. “i’m working with partners that have a real financial stake in what happens. i’m helping to educate corporations as to how to best position themselves for the future. it’s a very unique position to be in.”

Class Notes

interconnection for First Wind’s Northeast Wind Development Group. David Shanks LLM is teaching an undergraduate evening course in environmental law during spring semester at Saint Louis University. This is David’s first adjunct teaching assignment since his teaching practicum at VLS. Katrin Wiltshire MSEL recently passed the LEED AP exam. She asks that you let her know of any green building projects in or around Vermont or Quebec.

Tim Corso ’06 and family welcomed baby Arianna in December. Sateney Corso was born on December 21, 2009—in the midst of one of the largest snowstorms in Washington, D.C. history. She weighed 6 lb., 12 oz. and is very, very beautiful.” Paul Kosnik and Renee Lewis Kosnik JD/MSEL announce the birth of their daughter Quinlyn Clare Kosnik, born on August 28, 2009. She weighed 6 lb., 9 oz. and was 19 in. long at birth.

2007 Jim Murphy LLM’06 with new baby, Fiona low-cost capital to finance the implementation of energy efficiency measures. Carter Scott and her partner, Jennifer Huggins, welcomed in the newest addition to the family. Oliver Merrill Scott Huggins was born on January 5; he was 8 lb., 4 oz. and 20.5 in. long. They are all happy and healthy and living in South Portland, Maine. Carter is working for First Wind as a transmission associate, working on transmission and

Samuel Neal and Theodore Joseph, twin sons of Jennifer Abdella ’07 and husband, Charlie Benjamin

Quinlyn Clare Kosnik, daughter of Paul ’06 and Renee Lewis Kosnik JD/MSEL’06 Jim Murphy LLM and his wife, Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic attorney and assistant professor Laura Murphy, welcomed a beautiful baby girl named Fiona Marin Murphy on September 30, 2009. Todd Parker MSEL is part of a team working to develop Michigan Saves, an energy efficiency financing program for the state of Michigan. When the program is completely developed by the end of 2010, Michigan residents will be able to access

Jennifer Abdella reports, “My husband, Charlie Benjamin, and I welcomed twin boys, Samuel Neal and Theodore Joseph, to the world on November 21, 2009. Sam and Theo are healthy and growing quickly; my husband and I are trying to keep up.”

Oliver Merrill Scott Huggins, son of Carter Scott ’06 and Jennifer Huggins

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Helene Busby has been working at The Legal Aid Society, Harlem Community Law Office, New York, New York, since August 2007, where she represents low income individuals with a variety of civil legal issues. On October 3, 2009, she married Stephan Edel, who is currently a 3L at City University of New York Law School. They were married on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and live in Woodside, New York (Queens). Rachel Cotrino has joined the Garden State Philharmonic board of directors. spring 2010 45

Nathaniel Shoaff ’07 Not taking the Sierra Club to Court During law school Nathaniel Shoaff never quite envisioned the work he’s doing today. As an Environmental Law Fellow with the Sierra Club’s Law Program, Shoaff works with the club’s chapters all around the country to bring and resolve environmental grassroots lawsuits over matters the members care deeply about. What he didn’t anticipate was how often he would be helping people find solutions that weren’t based in litigation. “i talk with the chapters about all the other things they’ve been doing for years in terms of a given issue. The lobbying, the organizing, the coalition building. While these folks appreciate how the legal process can help them, they also know that there are other methods.” Shoaff appreciates the pragmatic approach of the people he works with. Maybe, he says, the best answer isn’t filing or winning a lawsuit, when the real goal is protection of a resource or wildlife. take, for instance, the balance between preserving habitat and siting large-scale solar energy projects on public lands so that they can get stimulus funding. “You’re going to have a conflict between two very important environmental goals. These projects can have a positive impact on climate change, but can have a negative impact on habitat protection. Sierra takes these issues case by case. We’re trying to help make them happen, but site them so that they minimize impacts to sensitive habitats and endangered species.” it’s important to see each case from a broader perspective, says Shoaff. That way, the legal work he’s doing isn’t just a “oneoff lawsuit.” instead, his efforts become part of a broader initiative to educate the

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public and change policy on a given issue. Shoaff says he’s become more of a problem-solver than a litigator, and that VLS helped develop that quality. “The academic excellence at VLS goes without saying. But beyond that, the school provides other experiences that have made a big difference. Doing moot court, being editor in chief of the Vermont Law Review, being a dean’s fellow, and teaching legal writing to incoming students . . . even coaching soccer off campus. These things taught me the communication skills i’m using now. My work is about building relationships, making helpful connections, finding solutions, and communicating them.”

“My work is about building relationships, making helpful connections, finding solutions, and communicating them.”

Class Notes

Maureen (Bayer) Hodson and David Hodson were married on September 26, 2006, in Glen Ellen, California, and celebrated the day with family and friends, including VLS alumni Alissa Kretser and Melissa Locke ’08. Maureen is practicing Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) litigation in Lafayette, California, and David is an environmental engineer. They live in San Rafael, California. Christopher King is now living in Washington, D.C., where, though highly qualified, he is “reevaluating his decision of law as a career choice. Apparently, it seemed like a good idea in 2004. Six years, four states, three degrees, two bar exams, one law license, and over 100 applications later I am still unemployed. If bitterness could be bottled and sold, I would have a world class distillery. I would be glad to share a fine single-malt snark with you any day—as long as you are paying.” He would like even more to take (most) any paying work that any intrigued readers might know about. Drop him a line at christopher.k.king@gmail.com. Rossi Maddalena says, “I wanted to let VLS folks know that my wife, Edna, and

Henry Joseph Maddalena, son of Edna and Rossi Maddalena ’07

I are enjoying spending time with our new little baby boy, Henry Joseph Maddalena. He was born on the morning of November 25, 2009. He is pretty darn cute (if you ask me).” Jennifer Murphy is living in the Boston area and practicing energy law as a hearing officer for the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. Alan Roughton recently opened his own law practice, The Law Office of Alan M. Roughton PLLC, in Washington, North Carolina. Jodi M. Schlegel joined Scarinci Hollenbeck as an associate in the firm’s Labor and Employment Law Group in October, 2009. She works with both the public and private sector, handling matters that involve grievances, arbitrations, and other personnel issues. Nick Stanton is a staff attorney with Disability Rights Vermont in Montpelier and is enjoying life with his wife, Rachel, and their two kids, Ella and Owen. River Thomas Thibault was born on September 21, 2009. The expanded family, including Johanna and Rory Thibault and Rani, their dog, live in Richmond, Virginia. Rory has been working as a judge advocate prosecutor for the U.S. Army at Fort Lee, Virginia, since May of 2009. He has successfully prosecuted a murder for hire case, a child molestation case, and several felony level drug cases. Recently, Johanna completed her clerkship with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and now works as a civilian legal assistance attorney at Fort Lee. Andrew Weber MSEL’04/JD’07 is general manager of the Oneonta Tigers. He shared the following news, “The team has announced that we’re relocating the ballclub from Oneonta to Norwich, Connecticut, for the 2010 season. Although this was a very tough decision, it is a big move for me professionally as I’m going to continue to be GM and will now be in charge of a 6,000 seat stadium with luxury boxes and all the amenities in a much larger market. We’re still affiliated with Detroit, are still

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River and his mother, Johanna Thibault ’07, are bundled up to enjoy a snowy day. at the Single-A level, and will continue to play in the same league (Burlington, Vermont; Lowell, Massachusetts; Brooklyn, New York, etc.). The move is still pending approval from Minor League Baseball, but I’m hoping to physically be in the market soon.” For details about the move, and a photo of Andrew in the team’s clubhouse, visit http://theday.com/article/20100129/ SPORT04/301299823/-1/SPORTlocal.

2008 Nesha Christian-Hendrickson is working for the Honorable Julio A. Brady. John W. Cleveland Jr. recently moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, and accepted a position at Winchester, Sellers, Foster & Steele PC. William S. Eubanks II LLM recently prevailed in a landmark environmental lawsuit that challenged an industrial wind energy project’s construction and operation under the Endangered Species Act. Eubanks, an attorney with the public interest environmental law firm Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal, represented a coalition of nonprofit conservation organizations that support the development of responsible wind energy that fully accounts for environmental protection and wildlife concerns. The precedent-setspring 2010 47

2009 After graduation Jared Carter moved west to Helena, Montana, where he spent the year clerking for the Montana Supreme Court. He also started a nonprofit organization called Global Odyssey, which leads volunteer service and outdoor adventure trips for students and adults to Latin American countries where the United States has traditionally had strained foreign relations. More information about Jared’s endeavor can be found at www.global-odyssey.org. Nisha Swinton MELP wrote an editorial advocating the use of tap water over bottled water for the Portland Press Herald. 48 loquitur

In Memoriam Lyman Stookey ’77 died unexpectedly August 29, 2008, at his home. For 10 years, he was the minister at First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, New York. He left the ministry to serve as assistant to the administrator of New York City’s Human Resources Administration and later to the director of the Urban Studies program at The New School for Social Research. After earning his law degree from Vermont Law School, he served as planning director for the Vermont Agency of Human Services. Then, for 20 years, he taught at Brandeis University and directed its Law, Medicine and Health Policy program. In retirement, he taught as a volunteer at Hamilton-Wenham High School and the Brooks School. He was about to start his second year as a tutor at Codman Academy, a charter school in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Survivors include three daughters, Hoyt Bingham of Royalton, Vermont, Caroline Dennis of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Meg Stookey of Hamilton, Massachusetts; a son, John Stookey of Las Vegas, Nevada; his former wife, Dorothy, of Hamilton, Massachusetts; many grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. He is also survived by his two brothers, John of Sheffield, Massachusetts, and Byron of

Additions to the Report of Giving The donors shown below were inadvertently omitted from the fall 2009 Loquitur Report of Giving. We apologize for our error, and thank these alumni and friends for their continued generous support of Vermont Law School.

Brattleboro, Vermont; and his first wife, Shirley, of Greenfield, Massachusetts. Randal Bryan Hill ’93 died November 12, 2009, in Greensboro, North Carolina. A memorial service was held on Sunday, January 31, 2010, at Level Cross United Methodist Church, with the Reverend Jerry Smith officiating. The family received friends following the service in the church fellowship hall. Randal was a native of Asheboro, North Carolina. From Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Florida, he earned an associate’s degree in psychology in 1977 and an ASIBS in cardiopulmonary medical science in 1985. He graduated from the University of West Florida in Pensacola, Florida, in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and in 1989 with a master’s degree in cognitive psychology. He earned his JD at Vermont Law School; he graduated magna cum laude in 1993 and was admitted to Alpha Sigma Laude. He is survived by his daughter, Diana Hill of Rutland, Vermont; son, Alex Hill of Rutland, Vermont; parents, Lucille Hanner Hill and Earl Bryan Hill of Asheboro, North Carolina; and brother, Gregory Hill of Asheboro, North Carolina.

Century Club $100–$249 Anthony Iarrapino ’03 and Joslyn Wilschek ’03 Tower Club $1,000–$2,499 Pamela C. Kraynak ’84 In Memory of the Honorable James L. Oakes Mara Williams Oakes

Mark Washburn

ting ruling, available at www.awionline. org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/16988, sends a clear message that while wind power is an essential part of our nation’s energy portfolio needed to combat climate change, companies developing renewable energy are still obligated to comply with environmental laws in a manner that protects the public interest. Discussion of the lawsuit has been featured on National Public Radio and in The New York Times and the Washington Post. Daniel Schramm is currently a staff attorney at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C. He is working on a handbook for adaptation to climate change for natural resources management and biodiversity conservation in Global South countries. ELI is always interested in including as many perspectives on its projects as possible. If you or someone you know is also working in the areas of conservation and climate change adaptation, Daniel would love to hear about your work. A penultimate draft of the handbook will be presented at a side-event to a Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in May, and a final draft is set for release in early fall of 2010. Please contact him at schramm@eli.org.

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Mark Washburn