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w i n t e r 2013 / 14
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the alumni magazine for vermont law school
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w i n t e r 2013 / 14
Volume 27, Number 1
President and Dean
Marc Mihaly
Professor of Law AND Vice President
for External Relations
Cheryl Hanna
Editors
Jim Collins
Peter Glenshaw
Ariel Alberti Wiegard
Contributing Editors
Patty McIlvaine
Melissa Schlobohm MELP’12
Contributing Writers
Ian Aldrich
Kristen Fountain
Ben Hewitt
Karen Kaliski
Jamie Renner
Susan Salter Reynolds
Special Thanks
Lucy Halse MELP’13
Tori Jones
J.P.M. Wiegard ’13
Design, Art Direction, and Production
Flannel
Printing
J.S. McCarthy Printers
Published by Vermont Law School
164 Chelsea Street, PO Box 96
South Royalton, VT 05068
www.vermontlaw.edu
Send address changes to [email protected]
or call 802-831-1312.
Printed with soy-based inks on recycled paper.
© 2014 Vermont Law School
LEFT: Patrons gather at The Worthy Burger,
a craft beer and burger bar near the Vermont
Law campus.
special food issue
Contents
Nourishment
The Center for Agriculture
and Food Systems: seedbed
and shepherd of a healthier
body of law.
DEPARTMENTS
By Kristen Fountain
Letter from the Dean
10
Reflections on a school that
continues to follow its gut................4
Discovery
A consortium brings Vermont’s
food players to the table. Plus,
partnering with UVM........................6
Class Notes
News from the VLSAA, your
classmates, and friends..................32
Inter Alia
The Farm Bill, climate change,
and the 2014 Environmental
Watch List......................................47
Vermont Album ............................. 48
Entrepreneurial
Spirits
What do lawyers have to do with
Vermont’s local food movement?
(How Will Duane ’15 spent his
summer vacation and maybe
found his career.)
16
By Ben Hewitt
Grace Before
Dinner
Philanthropy and public
education go hand-in-hand
at this influential foundation.
But that’s just for starters.
By Jim Collins
20
The Food
Network
A smorgasbord of VLS
graduates who are all
over the menu.
25
On the cover: Blueberry pie from Lou’s
Restaurant, Hanover, New Hampshire.
Photograph by Rob Bossi.
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4
LETTER FROM THE DEAN
Cookin’
Dear Alumni and Friends,
As you read this, Vermont Law School is halfway through its 40th anniversary. This academic
year we have much to celebrate, to be grateful for, and to share. But as many of you know from
your own lives, “40” has a way of asking us who we are and who we want to be. Vermont Law,
despite being an institution, is no different: over the last 18 months we have thought carefully
about our mission, our values, and what we want our future to look like.
What did we find? That this law school’s strength is its difference. To a person, every member of our family is unusually engaged in matters of fairness and matters of principle. We are
a community of risk-takers and advocates who actually want to change the world, not fit into
it. And we are a school that knows you can’t solve the world’s problems without educating the
world’s problem solvers.
As we begin the new year, I’m pleased to say Vermont Law and the University of Vermont
(UVM) are creating the first “3-2” program in the nation, in which students will complete an
undergraduate degree in three years and a JD in two years. Additionally, eight of our faculty will
begin teaching at the UVM School of Business Administration as part of the university’s new
Sustainable Entrepreneurship MBA program. And our two-year, Accelerated JD has proven
to be a great success.
We are also working hard to share our news in a way that adds real substance to the legal
conversation, and to involve the entire Vermont Law community in living and broadcasting
our mission.
To that end, it is only fitting that the magazine you are holding now—a first, teasing glance at
the new Vermont Law—is our Food Issue. We believe that food is a unique vehicle for change, as
it is intimately tied up with everything from human health and the environment, to poverty and
immigration, to law, politics, and culture, on every step of its journey from farm to plate.
Food also brings people together in a way that few other things do, and at this time of
change we find ourselves in very good company. (“Company,” if you didn’t know, is derived from
the Latin com (together with) and panis (bread), meaning those who break bread together.) Our
alumni are helping to fund the future of food and farming; our faculty are studying the front
lines of the movement; and even our food service providers are filling our bellies and our souls
with local, organic products. We are all working together for a resilient future.
As this issue reminds us, Vermont Law is an incredibly fertile place that encourages innovation and risk-taking. Put simply, we have and will continue to follow our gut. And we are hungry
for the next course.
Sincerely,
Marc Mihaly
President and Dean
5
W IN T E R 2013 / 14
DISCOVERY
Vermont: THE Emerging Epicenter
of Food Systems Education
The presidents of six Vermont higher
education institutions, include Vermont Law School, signed a memorandum of understanding in November
2013 to create the Vermont Higher
Education Food Systems Consortium.
This unique program will pool the resources of public and private colleges
devoted to food-systems education,
training, policy analysis, and research,
and will make Vermont a premier destination for postsecondary students
with an interest in promoting sustainable and robust food systems. Degrees
in food systems will range from agricultural production and sustainability
to diet and nutrition-related curricula.
The collaboration will combine applied
studies of agriculture from the state’s
technical schools, research focus from
the University of Vermont, and a postsecondary education in public policy
component at Vermont Law School.
Vermont Law School President
and Dean Marc Mihaly attended the
signing ceremony at the Statehouse in
Montpelier, along with Laurie Ristino,
Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Agriculture and
Food Systems at Vermont Law. “This
collaboration advances an alliance
between two of Vermont’s major eco-
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nomic drivers—education and agriculture,” said Dean Mihaly. “Vermont Law
School believes that restructuring our
agricultural enterprise is key to addressing climate change. Each of the
schools in the new consortium is devoted to advancing community-based
agriculture. Together we can utilize
Vermont’s iconic brand to attract more
students from around the nation and
the world, and offer them a more complete education.”
Vermont is known worldwide for its
commitment to local foods, sustainable food production, and for the
innovative, entrepreneurial spirit of
its inhabitants. Its artisanal products,
including cheeses, beer, and maple
syrup, are an important part of the
state’s economy.
The Vermont Council on Rural Development first advanced the consortium idea. Other participating institutions—all of which offer agricultural
education in various forms—include
Green Mountain College, Sterling College, University of Vermont, and the
Vermont State College system (principally Vermont Technical College).
State executives also attended the
event in Montpelier. Jolinda LaClair,
Deputy Secretary of the Agency of
6
Agriculture, speaking on behalf of
Secretary Chuck Ross, said the consortium was a top priority for Ross and
the Shumlin administration. “We talk
about the renaissance of agriculture,”
she said. “It’s real. Today, farming and
food systems are luring a new workforce to this sector. There is an opportunity—a very real opportunity for
Vermont to be a nationally recognized
center for food system education.”
“Vermont’s higher education institutions have graduated generations
of Vermont farmers, foresters, and
value-added entrepreneurs,” stated
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin.
“Today they are taking a historic step
of doing this work better together,
with this collaboration offering
students from across the country an
unprecedented set of experiences
in our working landscape. This will
attract new youth to rural Vermont
communities, spur innovation in the
food and forest economies, and help
all of us who are working to conserve
Vermont’s working landscape in production for the long-term future.” u
DISCOVERY
VLS Partners with UVM to Create
Innovative New Degrees and Programs
In an ongoing commitment to explore
opportunities for academic synergies,
Vermont Law School and the University of Vermont are collaborating to
create concentrated combined degree
programs that help students cut costs
and enter the job market faster.
The “Vermont 3-2”
This past fall, VLS and UVM announced groundbreaking plans to
create a joint undergraduate and law
degree that would take just five years
to complete—three years at UVM and
two years at VLS. That’s two years
less than the traditional 4-3 route—
resulting in substantially lower costs
for the students.
The “Vermont 3-2” degree, the
brainchild of VLS President and Dean
Marc Mihaly and UVM President Tom
Sullivan, is part of an effort to make
higher education more affordable for
Vermonters and to attract additional
students from across the nation and
the world to study in Vermont. “Both
institutions share a commitment to
environmentalism, sustainability, and
innovation and both play vital roles in
Vermont’s economy” said President
Sullivan. “We think a strengthened
relationship can bring many benefits
to our students, our faculties, and to
the people of Vermont.”
“The 3-2 program would reduce
significantly both the time and the
cost of receiving a post-graduate
degree,” explained Dean Mihaly.
“Vermont Law already has one of
the most progressive JD programs
in the nation, and we look forward
to working with UVM to help their
students reach their educational goals
with minimal student debt. We want
to ensure we continue to attract and
retain the talent we need to support a
prosperous future for Vermont.”
The 2-1 Competitive Edge
In another collaboration, students
would receive an Accelerated Sustainable Entrepreneurship MBA at UVM’s
School of Business Administration and
a law or masters degree at Vermont
Law School. Students who take advantage of this accelerated program can
earn both the MBA and an Accelerated
JD in three years, two years less than
the typical time required. Students
could also earn an MBA from UVM and
a Master’s degree in environmental law
or energy law from Vermont Law in
two years. In addition to reducing the
cost for students, the goal of the collaboration is to train tomorrow’s leaders in both business and law to create
profitable and sustainable business opportunities and social enterprises. This
opportunity will also be attractive to
foreign lawyers seeking highly specialized training in business, law, and the
regulatory process in the United States.
Vermont Law faculty will participate
each academic year as visiting faculty in the accelerated MBA program,
beginning in September 2014. Students
who graduate from either the accelerated MBA program or any of Vermont
Law School’s degree programs will be
guaranteed admission to the other
program, provided they meet certain
entrance requirements. Vermont Law
students will be able to take elective
MBA courses at UVM, giving the students from both programs the opportunity to study together.
“This agreement signals a new
level of cooperation and engagement
between the University of Vermont
and Vermont Law School,” said Cheryl
Hanna, Professor of Law and Vice
President for External Relations at
Vermont Law School. “Most importantly, this agreement permits students
at both UVM and Vermont Law School
7
to benefit from the academic and degree synergies that exist between our
schools. Our faculty and students are
excited to be part of the most forwardthinking MBA program in the country.”
“I am thrilled and delighted that
Vermont Law School faculty and students will soon be an important part
of the Sustainable Entrepreneurship
MBA,” said Sanjay Sharma, Dean of the
School of Business Administration at
UVM. “Vermont Law School is the topranked environmental law program in
the nation, and will make an important
contribution to our curriculum. We
have much to learn from each other,
and I know there will be new opportunities that emerge from this initial
collaboration.”
These initiatives build upon an already successful relationship between
the two institutions. More UVM alumni
obtain VLS degrees than graduates of
any other institution. The two schools
have jointly sponsored conferences
and currently offer a joint degree that
allows students interested in environmental science and policy to receive
a dual master’s degree from Vermont
Law and UVM’s Rubenstein School of
Environment and Natural Resources.
Most recently, UVM graduate
psychology students and Vermont
Law students at the South Royalton
Legal Clinic began working together to
explore how best to serve international
survivors of torture who are now part
of the Vermont community, and whose
requests for asylum are difficult to
process because of memory loss and
other post-traumatic issues. “This kind
of partnership,” noted President Sullivan, “allows our students and faculty
to work together to enrich the students’
education while reducing costs—and to
make a difference in our community.” u
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
DISCOVERY
VLS Conferences Explore National Security and Innovative
Criminal Justice Practices
Two conferences brought experts
from across the country and Vermont
to South Royalton this fall to discuss
national security and climate change,
as well as how innovative practices in
criminal justice might be adopted more
widely in Vermont.
The first conference, “Rising Temps
and Emerging Threats: The Intersection of Climate Change and National
Security in the 21st Century,” was
organized by the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law (VJEL) and held in late
October, just months after President
Obama articulated the need to prepare
for weather aggravated by rising temperatures. Symposium participants
discussed and debated the nature of
the climate change security threat,
the U.S. military response to climate
change, climate-based forced migration, and food security as national
security. The entire conference can
be seen on the VJEL YouTube channel
(http://bit.ly/1bDYEmx).
Presenters at the national security
conference included distinguished
representatives from federal agencies, non-governmental organizations,
and academia. The keynote speaker
was D. James Baker, Administrator of
the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and
current director of the Global Carbon
Measurement Program for the William
J. Clinton Foundation. Other speakers
included John Steinbruner, Director
of the Center for International and
Security Studies at the University of
Maryland, and Jody Prescott, a Senior
Fellow at West Point Center for the
Rule of Law and retired U.S. Army
Judge Advocate General’s Corps officer.
“Scientists, legal scholars, and advocates from across the nation made one
thing clear at the October 2013 VJEL
Symposium,” said Molly Gray ’14, VJEL
Symposium Editor. “We are nearing
the point of no return when it comes
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to climate variability and beginning
to witness the human impact of these
changes nationally and internationally,” she said. “The speakers called on
future leaders at Vermont Law to use
their legal education to help shape sensible solutions to this rapidly emerging
climate-created security paradigm and
to be advocates for rapid action and
adaptation.”
In November, the “Innovative
Criminal Justice Practices in Vermont”
conference focused on programs that
are improving criminal justice management throughout the Green Mountains.
“This conference was a chance for
everyone involved in criminal justice
in Vermont to learn more about innovative practices that could be adopted
on a larger scale,” said Robert L. Sand
’87, former Windsor County State’s Attorney, current Senior Policy and Legal
Advisor with the Vermont Department
of Public Safety, and criminal law professor at Vermont Law School.
Among the innovations discussed
were rapid intervention community
courts, court-ordered assessments
at arraignment, integrated domestic
violence dockets, and the challenges
associated with managing drug or alcohol treatment dockets.
More than 200 judges, prosecutors,
private defense attorneys, legislators,
and other criminal justice stakeholders
attended the sold-out conference. Participants included the state’s Supreme
Court Chief Justice Paul Reiber, Attorney William Sorrell, Chittenden County
State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan, Vermont
Law School Dean Marc Mihaly, and
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin. u
The Road Well-Traveled: Cameron Way
Visitors to the Vermont Law School campus see a graceful ring road with a commanding view of the White River as soon as they cross the bridge on Chelsea
Street and approach the Oakes Hall entrance. Since last spring, that well-traveled
road has been known as Cameron Way.
Cameron Way is named in honor of J. Scott Cameron, former chair of the
Vermont Law School Board of Trustees and a thirty-year member of the VLS
community. Cameron graduated from VLS in 1980. Since then, he has played
many roles at the Law School: speaker, trustee, host, donor, and employer. He
has exemplified what it means to be a volunteer, and worked tirelessly as a
member of the Board of Trustees from 1984-2010.
He has worked with four VLS deans and hired two of them. He received an
honorary degree in May 2011, and was the inaugural recipient of the VLS Alumni
Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award in September 2011. As a donor, Cameron has helped numerous students through the Cameron Scholarship Fund and
through other philanthropic contributions.
A version of the campus master plan included a recommendation to remove
the ring road entirely and plant an apple orchard where the parking lot currently
resides. It was fellow trustee Fran Yates’s suggestion that the road should be
kept and named for Scott Cameron. It encircles the 16-acre campus, with access
to parking and sloping lawns on the eastern and northern sides that lead down
to the river.
The road that bears his name was dedicated in a ceremony at the Chelsea
Street entrance to the campus on May 17, 2013. u
8
DISCOVERY
Distance Learning Program Adds Partners and Degrees
Since its launch in 2011, the distance
learning program has extended Vermont Law School’s top-rated environmental law course content to students
around the world. This year, the law
school is expanding its reach in two
ways. A pilot program this year will allow partner law schools to offer select
VLS online courses in their course
catalogs. In addition, Vermont Law will
be adding new online degree programs
to its portfolio.
“Law students elsewhere often want
to take environmental law courses they
can’t find on their own campuses,” says
Rebecca Purdom JD ’96/MSEL’98, Associate Dean for Innovation and New
Programs, and Associate Professor of
Law. “It just makes sense for Vermont
Law School to partner with other institutions that need to enhance their own
course catalogs.”
A pilot partnership with Boston
University will allow VLS to deliver energy and environmental law courses to
students enrolled in BU’s Executive LLM
in International Business Law program.
“Students earning a BU degree,” says
Purdom, “have the opportunity to take
the best energy and environmental law
courses available from VLS.”
Innovative and simple, the agreement
offers multiple advantages. “VLS courses
are listed in the BU catalog so students
register and pay as they would for any
BU course,” says Purdom. “That fact, and
being able to remain with their home institution, makes the process frictionless.
BU keeps students focused on its law
school and degree program. And VLS
doesn’t assume administrative overhead
as it gains course participants.”
Purdom hopes to build on the BU
relationship and develop similar partnerships with other law schools, including
distance learning partnerships that
would enhance JD programs, as well.
Vermont Law School is also preparing to make two more of its residential
degree programs available online: the
Master’s of Energy Regulation and Law
(MERL) and the LLM in Energy Law.
Designed to be exactly the same as the
residential program in terms of courses and requirements, the 30-credit
online MERL focuses on law and policy
governing energy use, production, and
transmission. The program is awaiting
accreditation from the New England
Association of Schools and Colleges
(NEASC), which is expected early in
the new year.
In addition, the Master of Environmental Law and Policy (MELP) will also
add a concentration next year in food
and agricultural law to both its residential and online programs. Both programs
serve growing interest in sustainable
food systems, a new frontier in environmental law and policy. u
A Gift for the Next Generation of Environmental Leaders
In September, Vermont Law announced
the second largest gift in the history
of the school—$1.5 million from James
“Jimmy” Hanson II, president of a
New Jersey real estate consortium and
a 1983 magna cum laude graduate from
Vermont Law School. The gift will be
used to strengthen the school’s environmental law and policy program and
to expand the leadership curriculum
within the Master’s of Environmental
Law and Policy program. The only
larger gift received by VLS was $2 million from Julien and Virginia Cornell
to create a law school library—now the
Cornell Library—in 1991.
Ranked as the best environmental
law school by U.S. News for the last five
years, Vermont Law is known for producing graduates who make a difference, and Hanson wants that tradition
to continue.
“VLS is producing advocates,” says
Hanson. “It’s not just a vocation, but an
avocation. People come here because
they are inspired to make a difference.
It’s that kind of mind-set that really
inspires me to give to the law school.”
Under the terms of the gift, Vermont Law will expand its master’s
degree curriculum to focus on leadership, financial literacy, modern communications, and advocacy campaigns.
The gift will enable graduates not only
to have a legal education, but also an
understanding of how businesses run
and why leadership plays a vital role in
environmental law and policy.
The gift will also be used to support
research centers and institutes at the
Environmental Law Center.
“Vermont Law School is indebted
to Jimmy for this generous gift,” said
President and Dean Marc Mihaly. “This
commitment provides an important
investment in our flagship environmental program, and provides VLS
graduates further resources to make
9
a difference in their communities and
the world.”
“For 40 years, Vermont Law has
been helping to create leaders who use
the power of the law to make a difference, locally, nationally, and internationally,” Hanson commented. “I am
delighted to help ensure that the law
school continues its tradition of excellence in environmental law and policy
and hope this gift will inspire friends
and alumni of VLS to do the same.”
Hanson told a reporter that the idea
of giving is strong in his family. Harvey
Hoffman, Hanson’s grandfather, was a
Protestant minister who instilled in his
children and grandchildren a strong
foundation for giving. “The concept of
giving back has been passed down for
generations,” Hanson said. “We’ve been
blessed as a family and that enabled us
to give back. Giving back to Vermont
Law does make a difference in this
world.” u
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
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10
Vermont Law School’s Center for Agriculture and Food
Systems is on a mission to improve the way a nation grows
and distributes its food. It’s a place where students can
get their hands dirty.
By Kristen Fountain
11
Field Trip: professor Laurie Ristino ( left) and
student research associates Emma Hempstead ‘14
and Delilah Griswold ‘14 chat with Suzanne Long,
co-owner of Luna Bleu Farm, AUGUST 2013.
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
Scenes from a wet summer at Luna Bleu Farm :
a family farm pet happy in mud; harvesting zucchini
by hand; transplanting greenhouse kale.
t’s less than a mile from the town common in South Royalton to the organic
vegetable and hay farm known (ironically) as Hurricane Flats. Last fall, the
farm’s owners, Geo Honigford and Sharon O’Connor, finally finished stabilizing
300 feet of riverbank there that had been severely eroded during 2011’s Tropical
Storm Irene. The willow shrubs they’d planted helped them restore a 35-foot
buffer between their cropland and the White River.
From the same starting point, it’s a
five-minute drive north beyond the
river to the open-air cow barn and the
neat rows of organic vegetables at
Luna Bleu Farm, where Suzanne Long
and Tim Sanford work a small, diversified farm that includes grassfed beef
and free-range chickens.
The couple sells produce and meat
to Community Supported Agriculture
(CSA) shareholders, local restaurants,
and the South Royalton Cooperative
Market, among other places, and at the
Norwich Farmers Market, where Long
has been on the board of directors for
close to a decade. After a discouragingly wet summer that forced them to
plow under several ruined crops, Long
and Sanford have put the ground to
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bed and are in winter mode, supplying
the winter market with harvests from
their greenhouse and freezer.
Lawyers- and advocates-in-training
at Vermont Law School’s Center for
Agriculture and Food Systems (CAFS)
don’t have to go far to observe the daily
hard work of producing environmentally sustainable food. In fact, twenty-two
small farms and orchards operate within a ten-mile radius of the law school’s
central building, Debevoise Hall. For
students intent on improving the nation’s current body of food law—which
for decades has been geared toward
conventional, commoditized, industrialscale production—this is an incredibly
fertile place. It’s a place where students
can get their hands dirty in an active
12
farming region in a state known for its
progressive laws and ideas.
To help transform the food system
into one that is resilient and sustainable, advocates must go beyond simply
keeping up with the new regulations
coming out of U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) or the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA). Growing
and distributing food that is good for
people and the planet will require new
markets, innovative business models,
and new rules governing everything
from land use and water rights to
food labeling and pesticides. “We want
to know what is happening on the
ground,” says Laurie Ristino, CAFS’s
director, “We want to bring the law
alive.”
Until recently, agricultural law was
taught in law schools in the Midwest
and Plains states as a conventional
specialty. Over the last handful of
years, though, a few dedicated legal
centers around the country have
sprung up around the concept of “food
law.” The new area of study integrates
the legal aspects of agriculture with
topics as diverse as food safety, nutrition, and animal welfare. The subject
also encompasses the environmental
impacts of food production, including
climate change.
VLS celebrated the opening of CAFS
in October 2010 under the umbrella of
its nationally renowned Environmental
Law Center. It joined existing centers
at Harvard Law School and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. An
institute with a similar focus opened
in 2013 at the University of California
in Los Angeles. Among them all, the
Vermont center is uniquely located
to focus on a crucial growing part of
the national food system: small and
mid-size farms, processing facilities,
and retailers. Laws and policies at
the national and state levels affect
them differently than they do the
large industrial farms that still feed
most Americans. Smaller farms and
businesses, like those that dot the
landscape in central Vermont, have a
smaller environmental footprint and
are hotbeds of new ideas. On the processing side, as well, there are creative
food partnerships to explore around
South Royalton and beyond.
Emily Laine ’15, a member of the
law school’s student-run Food and
Agriculture Law Society, says the most
mind-expanding outing with the group
so far has been to the Mad River Food
Hub in Waitsfield. The 4,000-squarefoot Mad River facility is equipped for
a wide range of food processing and
is USDA-certified for butchering and
packaging meat, a unique designation
for its size. By design, the building is
flexible, allowing for intermittent or
full-time use by small-scale producers.
The Hub currently hosts companies
that make commercially sold salumi,
yak meat, and raw dog food. In addition to providing opportunities for
collaboration among the users, the
facility also provides small business
planning support and, as of last October, a shared delivery truck. “I like to
see things like that, that are win-win,”
says Laine, who also co-produces Food
Talk Radio, a monthly campus podcast
on sustainable food issues. The programs are available on iTunes (https://
itunes.apple.com/sn/podcast/food-radio-collectives-podcast/id629304864).
Vermont Law students have the
chance to see how the shared-facilityand-resource model works on a larger
scale, too. The nonprofit Center for
an Agricultural Economy operates the
Vermont Food Venture Center (VFVC),
a 15,000-square-foot food processing facility in Hardwick. The facility
is licensed to house any kind of food
production that does not require the
handling of meat or dairy products.
Among the roughly 40 VFVC users
Nearly 25 years later, Intervale is leasing 135 acres to eleven different farms.
The farmers are assisted by a group
website that supports online ordering
and direct delivery to local customers. The Intervale Center has faced a
variety of legal and regulatory challenges during its start-up and growth
over the years. To the CAFS staff, the
organization is just one of Vermont’s
many valuable case studies in sustainable agriculture.
“It’s live experimenting in the new
food movement,” Ristino says. “A lot
of it is happening here.”
Farmers with Law Degrees?
ot surprisingly, at least a
few Vermont Law School
graduates began thinking
about embarking on farming
careers because of their knowledge
of the law, and did so years before
the current “food law” concept blossomed. Two of them made small-scale
organic dairying profitable by develop-
the tapestry of a sustainable food
“Although
system will be woven primarily by individuals
who invest their time, money, and labor into
farming and food production over the course
of a lifetime, lawyers and advocates will be
needed to keep the fabric strong.”
are small-scale makers of yam salsas,
kale chips, sauerkraut, kombucha,
and pretzels.
The oldest of the micro-business
hubs, Burlington’s Intervale Center,
began leasing a small amount of land
along the Winooski River on the north
side of the city in 1990. Its goal was to
reduce start-up costs for small farmers
by making fields, greenhouse space,
and equipment all available for rent.
13
ing sophisticated on-farm processing
operations.
In this, John Putnam ’83 and Amy
Huyffer ’00 are bucking a statewide
trend towards herd consolidation that
began in the 1950s. By the start of
the 21st century, the number of farms
operating in Vermont had plummeted
from 10,000 to 1,000, even as the total
number of cows in the state’s dairy
herd remained roughly the same.
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
Putnam and Huyffer are farmers, but
also the kind of dogged and creative
entrepreneurs that staff and students
with CAFS hope to support and foster.
John Putnam and his wife Janine
(also an ‘83 graduate of VLS) bought
Thistle Hill Farm in North Pomfret not
long after graduation. At first, dairy
farming was a part-time endeavor
that came second to child-rearing and
John’s corporate law practice. When
the family got into the business fulltime in the late 1990s, the Putnams
quickly realized that even the economics of selling higher-priced organic
milk wholesale were not favorable to
the farmer.
So they went on a quest. The
couple scoured the French Alps for the
right microbes and a cheese maker
willing to teach them the craft. The
result was Farmstead Tarentaise, their
high-end, award-winning alpine cheese
that has grown so popular that it’s now
made both at Thistle Hill and at an affiliated farm in nearby Reading.
Huyffer started Strafford Organic
Creamery with her husband Earl
Ransom on the dairy farm in Strafford
where he grew up (see “Organic,” page
28). Reaching the same conclusion
found that a law degree comes in handy.
“It’s never a bad idea to be able
to read a contract or to write one,”
Huyffer says.
Putnam believes his legal background made it easier to wade through
the complex process of becoming and
staying certified to process milk. “If
somebody throws a regulation in my
face, I’m not the least bit intimidated,”
Putnam says.
But going from law books to muck
boots is certainly not a common path.
Putnam doubts many farmers would
ever seek out a law or master’s degree.
They generally don’t have the available
time or money. And it is the uncommon law school student who wants
to live according to the relentless
schedule of a family farm. But farming on the ground is only one area of
the food system. CAFS can provide
valuable guidance, faculty expertise,
and student assistance for farmers or
value-added producers who are just
starting. In addition to helping to create a food and agriculture certificate
for the online Master’s in Environmental Law and Policy (MELP), CAFS
is working with fellows and students to
produce a range of basic legal docu-
of the requirements of the new Food
“Some
Safety Modernization Act may crush small
producers. The challenge now is to press
for tweaks that don’t undermine the law’s
intent.”
LAURIE RISTINO
as the Putnams, Huyffer and Ransom
began by buying up second-hand
equipment and building a creamery
next to their milking parlor. Today
the company is well known regionally
for its glass-bottled organic milk and
cream and delectable pints of smallbatch premium ice cream.
Both Putnam and Huyffer have
LOQUITUR
ments and make them available online.
To pick one example: Access to
arable land is one of the biggest challenges for would-be farmers, says
Laurie Beyranevand ’03, CAFS’s associate director. Often creative leasing
or long-term payment arrangements
are farmers’ only options. CAFS plans
to put together a suite of model land
14
tenure tools that could save farmers
time and money and educate them in
the process.
In the same vein, most local farmers markets and multi-farm CSA
programs operate without any kind
of formal governance structure. That
vacuum exposes the participants in
the markets and CSA’s to unnecessary liability, Beyranevand says. CAFS
wants to develop model documents
for incorporation and governance that
both types of partnerships could use
as templates. For the vast majority of
farmers and food producers, especially
those without law degrees, such aids
would certainly be useful, Putnam says.
Although the tapestry of a sustainable food system relies primarily on
individuals who invest their time,
money, and labor into farming and
food production, it is increasingly
clear that lawyers and advocates will
be needed to keep the fabric strong.
“How you get there is one strand at
a time,” Putnam says. “The more help
you have the better it will be.”
Seeding Farm Policy
olicymakers in Washington,
D.C., and in state capitals
around the country make
decisions every session that
affect small farmers and food producers for good or ill. Sustainable agriculture advocates who are trained in the
law can help by proposing changes to
legislation and acting as watchdogs
when new laws and regulations are
implemented.
Even laws approved with the best
of intentions can lead to a host of unintended consequences. Such seems
to be the case with the Food Safety
Modernization Act. Signed by President Obama almost three years ago,
the law is arguably the most sweeping
reform to the federal government’s
oversight of food production since
the Progressive Era. The new statute
empowers the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take a preventative
rather than a reactive approach to the
contamination of fruits and vegetables
by viruses and bacteria. It directs
the agency to develop and enforce
scientifically based standards for safe
harvesting and processing. It also
requires both growers and producers
to develop more rigorous monitoring
systems and response plans if contamination occurs.
For farmers especially, this means a
new thicket of regulations. Previously,
the FDA stayed out of the growing side
of the equation. “This is the first time
where we are seeing the FDA inserting itself in that part of the process,”
Beyranevand says.
As written, the law contains specific provisions that exempt farms with
less than $500,000 in sales from some
of the more onerous, and expensive,
requirements. But draft rules that the
agency released last year threw that
deal into question. The cost of complying with the proposed regulations
could consume as much as half of a
small farm’s thin profit margin.
As it stands, “some of its requirements may in fact crush small producers,” Ristino says. “The challenge
now is to press for tweaks that don’t
undermine the law’s intent.” For her,
the central question is: “How do you
have a safe system and still allow good
things to happen?”
Students in one of Beyranevand’s
courses wrote comments on the FDA
rules, pointing out clarifications and
changes that would lessen the burden
on small farmers and producers. For
example, a small, diversified farm may
sell a variety of products that together
equal more than $500,000. Currently,
that farm wouldn’t qualify for the
exemption even if the fruit and vegetable portion of their sales fell under
the cut-off amount.
To pick another example that hits
close to home in Vermont, the proposed FDA regulations set far more
stringent limits on the use of manure
and compost as fertilizers than what is
allowed by the USDA, which creates a
particular problem for organic farmers.
Beyond the new regulations, lawyers affiliated with CAFS are engaged
in other forms of policy-oriented advocacy. Jamie Renner, CAFS’s clinical
lead, is compiling all existing statelevel legislation that supports connecting farms and schools through both
the classroom and the cafeteria. The
goal is to create a compendium of the
various sorts of policies, and analyze
their impacts.
In a different vein, CAFS created a
web site (foodlabelfacts.org) that introduced consumers to the meaning and
legal basis for everything that ends up
written on a food label. In particular,
the site identifies the adjectives and
phrases—such as “organic,” “low fat,”
or “gluten free”—that are backed by
consistent definitions and standards
overseen by the USDA or monitored
by third parties. It contrasts them with
the descriptors—like “locally grown”—
that are not defined or reviewed.
Renner and Beyranevand are in the process of expanding the website through a
creative partnership with a national advocacy organization as well as developing other kinds of projects for students
to pursue outside of the classroom.
Ristino believes that the law school’s
leadership, in this historic moment, recognizes the opportunity to take a lead
role in shaping the laws and facilitating
the mechanisms that will allow a new
kind of agriculture to flourish, one that
is healthier for the community and the
world. Food that is good for people, and
good for the planet.
“The administration of Vermont
Law has yet to discourage any of the
ideas our staff has had,” says Ristino.
“There are not many institutions where
you can have this much innovation so
quickly. The only thing that limits us is
our imaginations,” she adds. “And we
have good imaginations.”
Growing a
Legal Clinic
After being hired last summer to lead the clinical
component of Vermont Law School’s new Center for
Agriculture and Food Systems, Jamie Renner got to
fill in the details of his own job description.
The law clinic, slated to open in fall 2014, was
just an idea until he came on board. His first task
was to define what its students would do. For Renner,
the job provides an uncommon opportunity to build
an experiential program from the bottom up, with assistance from Center director Laurie Ristino. “Laurie
and I joke about this being a start-up,” Renner says.
They decided first that the food law clinic would
take on educational and advocacy-oriented projects,
rather than try cases on behalf of individuals or organizations. Renner has already come up with several
discrete efforts and is solidifying partnerships with
international, national, and regional groups. Student
efforts will have a wider impact when yoked to an
existing, already effective, organization.
One project will include expanding upon an
existing student initiative (foodlabelfacts.org) that
explains in plain language what the words and
phrases used frequently in food labels actually mean.
The bigger site would be developed and presented
in conjunction with a national consumer advocacy
group, Renner says.
Another concept taking shape is the development of educational resources on the ramifications
of the new Food Safety Modernization Act for an
association of state and local governments. Others
include working with a regional aquarium to propose
a standardized certification system for seafood and
creating an anti-hunger campaign on behalf of an
international aid group.
All of the projects will provide a different kind
of experience than those found in more traditional
legal clinic settings, says Renner. But the training in
global thinking and problem solving will be valuable
whatever students end up doing. “It’s a more holistic
concept of advocacy that we think is good lawyering
in any context,” he says.
—Kristen Fountain
Kristen Fountain is a Vermont based journalist.
She holds master’s degrees in earth science and
journalism from Columbia University.
15
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROB BOSSI
ENTRePRENEURIAL
SPIRITS
The local food movement is creating a
crop of new jobs—some requiring not
tractors or fertilizer, but the tools of
the law. Could this lead to new career
opportunities? A postcard from Vermont.
by Ben Hewitt
W
hen Will Duane ’15 knocked on the door of Caledonia
Spirits in the summer 2013, his expectations were
pretty modest. “I figured I’d see if I could do some
bottling, and maybe see if I could make a little extra money,”
explains Duane, whose longtime interest in food and spirits
had drawn him to the Hardwick, Vermont, distillery renowned for the use of raw honey in its award-winning Barr
Hill Gin and Vodka. At the time, Duane was completing his
internship at the Vermont Attorney General’s office, and he
figured a little low-key liquor bottling was the ideal sideline.
For three weeks, Duane worked part-time at the distillery’s bottling station, filling and labeling bottles and then
dipping the cork stoppers into hot wax. Across from him,
he could see the gleaming stainless steel and copper vats,
and the warm scent of honey and yeast hung in the air.
Cheers: Micro-distilled vodk a and
gin from Caledonia Spirits.
17
ENTRePRENEURIAL
SPIRITS
All in all, it was not a bad gig—but it
was about to get even better. “I wasn’t
there very long before Todd [Hardie,
the founder of Caledonia Spirits] told
me about all the paperwork he had to
do,” Duane recalls. “I said ‘Hey, maybe
I can help you with that.’”
As it turned out, the process of producing and distributing craft spirits
was guided by more than an elixir of
art and science. That’s because the
production and sale of alcohol—be it
beer, wine, or liquor—is regulated by
a morass of state and federal rules
that could drive a would-be distiller
to drink. Or to drink more, anyway.
“Most people have no idea what has
to happen behind the scenes just to
the state capitol and 20 miles south
of Hardwick. “There’s no way I could
actually make the food—that’s just not
who I am. But if I can help them navigate the legal landscape to accomplish
their mission? That sounds pretty
good to me.”
On a cold, clear day in late November, I walk through same door Duane
did some six months prior. I’ve come
to speak with Caledonia Spirits’ founder, Todd Hardie. I want to know more
about the regulatory landscape—and
the relationship between food entrepreneurs and lawyers—but I also want
to better understand how the rapidly
expanding craft spirits sector fits into
the local food movement. In fact, Cale-
no way I could actually make the
“There’s
food—that’s just not who I am. But if I can
help Vermont food producers navigate the
legal landscape to accomplish their mission?
That sounds pretty good to me.”
Will Duane '15
bring the product to market,” explains
Duane. The paperwork Hardie showed
him was incredibly complicated.
And it explains why Duane was
pulled off the bottling station. He’s
now using his legal training to help
the small-but-growing distillery chart
its course through the complex set
of rules and regulations necessary to
bring its products to market. In the
process, he’s positioned himself at
the forefront of the rapidly expanding
niche of opportunity created by the
juncture of the local food movement
and the regulatory hurdles producers must leap. “I’ve always wanted to
help the food producers in Vermont,”
says Duane, 28, who grew up in East
Montpelier, just a few minutes from
LOQUITUR
donia Spirits’ hometown of Hardwick
had recently gained national attention
as something of a local foods mecca,
with numerous small-scale producers
popping up like dandelions in a June
hayfield: vegetables, cheeses, seeds,
meats, even soymilk and tofu. Over
the past decade, Hardwick-area entrepreneurs had developed a symbiotic
and collaborative food system that
was the envy of communities across
North America. How, exactly, did hard
alcohol fit into that system?
I follow Hardie into his office,
where a pitchfork leans jauntily
against one wall. (“We tried raising
pigs on the spent mash,” he tells me.
“It didn’t work so well, but we’re growing some great garlic out there now!”)
18
On another wall, a stark reminder of
the regulatory labyrinth that defines
so much of how a craft distiller operates had been taped. It is a list of the
18 “Monopoly States” in which the distribution of spirits is controlled solely
by the state, rather than by a regional
or national distributor. “When Prohibition ended, the powers were shifted
back to the states, and each state did
something different,” Hardie tells me.
“It is highly, highly regulated. There
are layers of permits required before
we can even release a product.”
To Hardie, who at 60 bears the endearingly rumpled look of an English
professor, the opportunity to contribute to Vermont’s working landscape
and food-based economy is worth
every bit of red tape. “This is what we
are called to do,” he says. “We have a
relationship with the bees and with
the land, and these relationships allow
us to do something really powerful,
which is to provide good jobs that help
families.” The business employs 15
part- and full-time workers.
The move to distilling with raw
honey was a natural and obvious
extension of Hardie’s love for bees,
which began when he was twelve years
old on his parents’ farm in Maryland
and continued into his adult years,
after his graduation from Cornell’s
School of Agriculture. For decades,
Hardie presided over Honey Gardens
Apiary in nearby Ferrisburg, Vermont,
where he sold raw honey and other
honey-based products. To Hardie,
raw honey is more than a simple food
product. “We could never heat the
honey, because raw honey isn’t just a
sweetener. It’s medicine.”
But the purely agricultural challenges of running an apiary eventually
wore thin. Some years, he’d lose half
his hives to pests or disease. He began
to consider ways in which raw honey
could be utilized that did not create
such vulnerability. Then there was
the fact that he came from a Scottish
family that had been distilling whisky
ENTRePRENEURIAL
SPIRITS
since 1857. Finally, Hardie came to see
that he could have a greater positive impact on the lives of his fellow
Vermonters if he shifted his love of
agriculture from producing honey to
turning it into liquor.
“I live on a hill farm that 40 years
ago was home to 30 cows, and someone was milking those 30 cows and
making a living from them. You could
never do that now if you were just selling milk. But that’s what the artisan
cheese movement is doing; it’s making
it possible to make a living from 30
cows again. Craft distilling is doing the
same thing.”
In large part, that’s because Caledonia Spirits is committed to sourcing
its raw ingredients locally. In fact, the
day before we met, Hardie had just
arranged a large purchase of organic
corn from Butterworks Farm in Westfield, Vermont, less than an hour’s
drive to the north. In 2014, the distiller
will begin contracting local farmers to
produce barley and rye. “What we’re
seeing in Vermont is that distilling is
helping grain growers,” Hardie says.
“We’re creating these relationships,
we’re creating all these connections,
and it’s touching a lot of lives. Nature
is beautiful. Farming is beautiful.
But behind all that beautiful curtain,
there’s a lot of hard work.” A surprising amount of the farm work is done
with legal tools.
P
ete Colman would agree with the
sentiment. Colman is the founder
of Vermont Salumi, a small-scale
food producer tucked into the corner
of a renovated barn on a dead-end
road in Will Duane’s hometown of East
Montpelier. Like Caledonia Spirits, Colman’s business is rooted in one of the
most highly regulated food industries
in the nation: meat. Adding a layer of
complexity, Vermont Salumi produces
dry-cured and fermented sausages
such as salami and other charcuterie.
“Most people told me that I
wouldn’t even be able to make cured
meat in Vermont,” Colman tells me,
when I reach him on his cell phone,
“because of the regulations.” He’s on
his way to speak with a local spice
maker about a potential collaboration—yet another example of a healthy
and symbiotic local food system. “So
many of my decisions around what
product to make and how to make it
are defined by law. Honestly, it’s the
big skeleton in the closet. It’s overwhelming sometimes.”
It took Colman nearly three years
to unravel the tangled web of state
and federal regulations that stood
between him and a finished product
(he was able to produce fresh sausage
in the meantime). Even something as
simple as his labels came attached to a
laundry list of requirements regarding
font size, white space, and placement.
And often, it felt to Colman as if he
were educating the regulators, rather
than the other way around. “It’s really
interesting working with an agency
that regulates an industry but doesn’t
actually understand your business.
What I really need is someone who
understands how my business works
and also knows how the law works.
Understanding how those two aspects
relate in a way that works for everyone
is critical.”
Pete Colman didn’t have a Will
Duane to help him maneuver through
the regulatory terrain standing
between him and a viable business.
“I don’t have a lawyer, but I should
probably get one,” he told me. Then he
sighed. “But I don’t think there are any
lawyers in this field.”
The employment niche that businesses like Caledonia Spirits and
Vermont Salumi have created is likely
to only expand as the local food movement continues to gain traction across
the country. “The growth and interest
is phenomenal,” says Professor Laurie
Ristino, director of the Center for
Agriculture and Food Systems at VLS.
“The great challenge of the new food
movement is figuring out how to apply
19
legal tools to sustainable agriculture.
There is so much opportunity.”
Better yet: for law schools such
as Vermont Law School, the intersection of the local food movement and
the multitude of legal challenges the
movement embodies creates a growing opportunity for legal experts to
apply their skills in a manner that
aligns with their social, environmental, and entrepreneurial ethos. “I’ve
really caught the entrepreneurial bug
working at Caledonia Spirits,” says Will
Duane. “But it’s not just entrepreneurialism for profit; it’s entrepreneurialism with a social mission. I want to
see that my actions are benefiting the
people of my community.”
Of course, it can sometimes be
difficult to maintain that view when
you’re finding your way through the
bewildering maze of rules set by the
Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade
Bureau (TTB). The TTB grants the
license that every distiller needs to
practice his craft, and then demands
documentation of every step of the
distilling process. To ensure that it
isn’t cheated out of a single penny of
the excise tax due on alcohol, the federal government requires that distillers account for every drop. “There’s a
lot of sifting through red tape,” Duane
acknowledges. “It can get frustrating.”
But as Todd Hardie has learned,
that occasional frustration is a necessary part of serving a larger purpose.
“The legal skills that Duane brings to
Caledonia are really important,” he
says. “And they complement what’s
equally important, which is a desire
to serve a company and take care of
Vermont and her people. That’s what
really matters. That’s our real product.
The rest of it, the bees, the honey, the
distilling, is just how we get there.”
Ben Hewitt is the author of The Town That
Food Saved, an exploration of Hardwick, Vermont, and the “agripreneurs” who transformed a
local economy. He lives with his wife and sons on
a 40-acre diversified hill farm in Cabot, Vermont.
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROB BOSSI
Connected: Scott Cullen ’97, executive director of Grace Communications
Foundation, immerses himself in the real world near his home on Long
Isl and before starting his work day in New York City.
LOQUITUR
20
da.
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By Jim Collins
A ne
21
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
n May 2011, an extraordinary range of experts and advocates
gathered at Georgetown University to discuss the future of
food. Journalist Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and a prominent
critic of industrial agriculture, gave the opening remarks. Among other panelists and speakers that day were CEOs of organic food companies; the senior
technology officer from General Mills; the president of The Land Institute; FDA’s
deputy commissioner for food; the outreach director for the National Farm to
School Network; a vice-president from the Grocery Manufacturers Association;
food writers and editors; Senator Jon Tester (D-MT); poet and farmer Wendell
Berry; restaurant owners; environmental academics; and Sam Kass, the White
House chef. Prince Charles, fresh off the international feeding frenzy surrounding his son’s royal wedding, gave the 40-minute keynote address, sounding an
alarm on the depletion of the earth’s soils and the overtaxing of its water, on
what has become an untenable global food system at the mercy of the unstable
price of oil. Then he laid out a coherent alternative vision for the future.
The Washington Post, the main
sponsor of the conference, gave the
event prominence in its paper and on
its web site, and its name was attached
to the flurry of national media attention that followed. Less prominent was
the behind-the-scenes co-sponsor, the
GRACE Communications Foundation.
GRACE, a philanthropic foundation
dedicated to raising public awareness
of the relationship between food, water, and energy systems, provided support for the conference with its savvy
media and communications expertise.
Among those attending the conference was Laurie David, an environmentalist and author who had
been so motivated by a slide show on
climate change by Al Gore that she’d
approached Gore afterward, and ultimately produced the award-winning
documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. At
Georgetown, she was similarly moved
by the Prince of Wales—and ended up
finding a publisher willing to spread the
message to a wider audience through
a slim, elegant book called The Prince’s
Speech: On the Future of Food. Partnering
with Laurie David and Rodale (and creating the web site and media support),
LOQUITUR
GRACE Communications helped lead
the effort to market and promote the
book’s important messages.
GRACE’s executive director, Scott
Cullen ’97, a lifelong surfer who
caught a particular brand of “all-in”
mindset while a student at Vermont
Law School, plays a key role in scores
of similar collaborations for GRACE.
He’s responsible for initiating and
cultivating relationships throughout
the nonprofit, corporate, and publicsector worlds, especially in arenas
where philanthropy and public policy
touch the overlapping spheres of food,
water, and energy. Precisely because
the seemingly intractable problems of
a healthy environment are complex
and interrelated, Cullen’s extensive
network and knowledge of the issues
have positioned him to recognize
potential synergies, leverage points,
and unexpected matches that aren’t
obvious on their face. He knows how
to read the waves. He has a talent for
making an ambitious idea seem possible, and mobilizing people behind
it—and then providing the programming or financial support (often both)
to help them put the idea into action.
22
In that way, GRACE is unusual in the
world of foundations. “We connect to
movements in a way that is more impactful than traditional philanthropy,”
he says.
Cullen credits part of his approach
to the experience he had at a different
kind of law school. A long-haired free
spirit as a student, Cullen routinely
grabbed time to hike up to Kent’s
Ledge or get in a few snowboard runs
between classes. He valued the direct
contact with nature that grounded
the concepts he was learning in the
classroom. His professors and fellow
students didn’t mind the sweaty, or
muddy, or sometimes barefoot student
who dashed in just as class was starting up—they valued intelligence and
opinions more than appearance. He
felt surrounded by expertise and passion, by people who looked past convention and acted according to their
ideals. “What gets cultivated at Vermont Law School,” he says, “is the idea
of taking risks—to do what you think
is right even if it’s hard. I learned that
from so many professors who had
taken on Goliaths and won, who knew
what it was like to be outgunned and
under-resourced and have nothing but
their creativity and intellect and nuanced understanding of the law.”
In his first job out of law school,
Cullen had the opportunity to work
for a start-up nonprofit. He wrote
the incorporation papers, set up the
accounting system, hired staff. “It
was all new to me and incredibly
challenging,” he recalls, “but VLS had
given me the confidence and thought
process, the critical thinking part
that is broadly applicable to so many
things. I wasn’t daunted.” He made a
name for himself working on coastal
and marine conservation issues with
The Nature Conservancy, and helped
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROB BOSSI
Beach Boy: In 2013, Cullen received the
Jeff and Genie Shields Prize from Vermont
L aw School, awarded in part for his work
on behalf of marine environments.
“What gets cultivated
at Vermont Law School
is the idea of taking
risks—to do what you
think is right even if
it’s hard.”
Scott Cullen ’97
a local advocacy group near his home
on Long Island permanently close the
Department of Energy’s leaking nuclear reactor at Brookhaven National
Laboratory. The GRACE Foundation
became aware of the grassroots effort
to shut down the Brookhaven reactor—and noticed Cullen’s effectiveness. The foundation hired him as an
informal policy advisor, then brought
him on staff as a senior policy advisor, then promoted him to executive
director. In addition to his position
at GRACE, Cullen serves as a director
on the boards of the Environmental
Grantmakers Association and the Sustainable Agriculture and Food System
Funders Network, and is a member of
Vermont Law School’s Environmental
Advisory Board.
Cullen’s deep knowledge of philan-
23
thropic organizations and individual
donors puts him in a unique position
to identify trends and opportunities.
To pick just one example: he’s getting
to know donors who are growing impatient with the federal government’s
slow response to climate change—and
who might be encouraged to see a
faster payback in supporting initiatives involving agriculture, a huge
sector for carbon emissions. While
he’s busy making those connections,
GRACE is helping articulate messaging
and sharpening the speaking points
for nonprofits working on sustainable agriculture, to make sure they’re
making a consistent, compelling connection between their work and the
changing climate. In this and dozens
of other ways behind the scenes,
GRACE Communications Foundation
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
is doing more than playing matchmaker (often with matching funds);
it’s seeding wide swaths of an entire
movement, and setting an agenda.
At the same time, GRACE continues to build on its history of innovative public outreach and education
campaigns, sometimes under its own
name, sometimes anonymously, and
often under the names of partners.
GRACE is behind the award-winning
animation “The Meatrix,” a kid-friendly
series about factory farming styled
loosely on The Matrix. It’s helped create
web-based initiatives including the
Ecocentric blog, the Eat Well Guide,
and the Sustainable Table. It provides a user-friendly online calculator
for estimating your water footprint.
Downloadable curriculum materials
for grades K-4. Videos. White papers.
Accessible resources. All with public
education in mind.
One particularly successful partnership has been a disarmingly simple
campaign called “Meatless Mondays”—
a catchy initiative to get Americans
to eat a little less meat. Over the past
several years the idea has flowed into
the mainstream. Meatless Mondays
have been endorsed by Paul McCartney and celebrity chef Mario Batali;
they’ve been institutionalized in Oprah
Winfrey’s cafeteria, in Toyota’s U.S.
plants, and in countless restaurants
and high schools and family dining
rooms across the country. Cullen
doesn’t have to point it out, but the
ripple effect is implied: not only the
thousands of meals consumed each
week that no longer contain meat—but
the thousands and tens of thousands
of minutes spent in conversation
about the merits of the issue in the
offices and committees and kitchens,
and in the weekly conversations of the
those who are reminded every time
they sit down to eat on Monday.
Setting the table for a new, more
sustainable kind of agriculture is just
one side of the equation. The other
part is getting people to come to the
healthier table, and eat.
GRACE is working both sides of the
table, and making a difference.
Amen to that.
Jim Collins is a freelance writer and editor. His
fifteen-year-old daughter attends The Northwest
School in Seattle, Washington, where the weekly
cafeteria menu includes “Meatless Mondays.”
The Prince’s Speech
This is the challenge facing us. We have to maintain a supply of healthy food at affordable prices when there is mounting pressure on nearly every element affecting the
process. In some cases we are pushing nature’s life-support systems so far, they are
struggling to cope with what we ask of them. Soils are being depleted, demand for water
is growing ever more voracious, and the entire system is at the mercy of an increasingly
fluctuating price of oil.
Remember that when we talk about agriculture and food production, we are talking
about a complex and interrelated system and it is simply not possible to single out just
one objective, like maximizing production, without also ensuring that the system which
delivers those increased yields meets society’s other needs. . . . These should include
the maintenance of public health, the safeguarding of rural employment, the protection
of the environment, and contributing to overall quality of life.
So we must not shy away from the big questions. Chiefly, how can we create a
more sustainable approach to agriculture while recognizing those wider and important
social and economic parameters—an approach that is capable of feeding the world
with a global population rapidly heading for 9 billion? And can we do so amid so many
competing demands on land, in an increasingly volatile climate and when levels of the
planet’s biodiversity are under such threat or in serious decline?
As I see it, these pressures mean we haven’t much choice in the matter. We are going to have to take some very brave steps. We will have to develop much more sustainable, or durable forms of food production because the way we have done things up to
now are no longer as viable as they once appeared to be.
—From “On the Future of Food,” HRH Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales
LOQUITUR
24
Across the state and around the globe, Vermont Law School grads are
refining—and defining—The ingredients of a healthy diet.
25
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Benjamin C. Tankersley
Michael Formica ’98, photographed
on December 2, 2013, Westover Market
Butcher Shop, Arlington, Virginia.
BIG BACON
Michael Formica ’98
By Ian Aldrich
W
hile it’s become common in recent years to espouse the virtues of small, localized
farming, Michael Formica isn’t one of the movement’s evangelists. As Chief Environmental
Counsel for the National Pork Producers Council in Washington, D.C., he works at the center of a $15
billion a year industry that employs more than a million people. “I’m ‘Big Bacon,’” he says, with a laugh. When it
comes to the bad rap that large-scale farming has taken over the last decade, however, Formica doesn’t kid around.
“There’s this vision of what a farm
looks like, but nobody wants to do the
work,” he says. “If we had 200 million
Americans each with 10 acres it would
be an inefficient way for the country
to produce food. It would be an inefficient way for the country to operate.”
Size has its place, says Formica,
when it comes to contending with environmental issues. Take something
like manure. By focusing on nutrition
and feed efficiency, the pork industry has made “dramatic” reductions
in what it generates, even while the
number of animals has essentially
remained the same. “Across the board
for the pork industry, in every environmental metric, we see pollution
decreasing from farms because they
have the capital and resources and
expertise to make advancements,”
he says.
At the heart of Formica’s work
is the push and pull of government
regulation. He’s in steady contact
with cabinet officials, Congress, and
federal agencies, most frequently the
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA). Some days he’s helping to craft
legislation, like the agricultural provisions in the 2009 American Clean
Energy and Security Act; other days
he’s firing up a response on behalf of
the livestock sector to, say, the EPA’s
renewable fuel standards.
“[The government] is like a school
yard bully, until you bloody them up a
few times,” says Formica, who previously worked as the director of Environmental Affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “They’re not going
to pay you much respect. But when
you force it to turn over a check and
pay you a lot of money, your clients
are really happy and the government
starts to listen to you.”
It’s a job that requires Formica to
boldly, quickly come up to speed on
all areas of environmental law. He
credits his training at Vermont Law
School for his ability to do that. “The
school taught me how to critically
think and evaluate problems,” he
says. “And the base level that I’ve got
in any environmental issue is above
and beyond anything other practitio-
27
ners have who I run into. We’ll bring
in these experts from big law firms
and I’ll just sit there and scratch my
head, thinking, You went to Harvard and
you don’t know this?”
“We’ll bring in these
experts from big law
firms and I’ll just sit
there and scratch my
head, thinking, You
went to Harvard and you
don’t know this?”
Michael Formica ’98
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
ORGANIC
Amy Huyffer ’00
By Kristen Fountain
I
n good weather it takes 22 minutes to drive from Rock Bottom
Farm in Strafford to the Vermont
Law School campus. Amy Huyffer, who
co-owns and operates the farm and
its Strafford Organic Creamery, knows
the route well. She spent her final year
at VLS commuting after a whirlwind
romance changed the course of
her career.
As a first-year law student Huyffer
aspired to be a principled small-town
lawyer like Atticus Finch. Instead, her
days now begin with four a.m. milking,
JAMMIN’
Nancy and
Walter Warner ’12
By Ian Aldrich
T
he local and craft food
movement comes in many
flavors—that’s a big part
of its appeal. But almost all of the
movement’s farmers, producers, and
entrepreneurs share the first-hand
knowledge of how hard it is to make a
living selling carefully created food in
small batches.
Nearly every morning, Walter Warner and his wife Nancy stumble out
of bed around 7:30 a.m., fire up the
coffeemaker, and get to work: emailing
customers, labeling jars, contacting
suppliers, processing orders. As the
owners and sole employees of The
Potlicker Kitchen, a Bethel, Vermontbased jelly maker, the Warners have
LOQUITUR
arranging logistics for a dairy business, and caring for her children—four
boys, ages six to thirteen.
The sharp turn came at South Royalton’s Crossroads Bar & Grill in November 1999. A cover band was playing when Huyffer and her moot court
partner stepped out to celebrate the
end of their trial. She teased her first
dance partner, saying she thought she
had heard that the boys from Strafford
had better skills. “He said, ‘You want
Earl,’ and brought him over,” Huyffer
recalls. That spring, Huyffer was married to South Strafford native, Earl
Ransom.
Ransom’s goal was to revive his
family’s dairy farm. To do that, the
couple gambled on organic certification and the ability to process and sell
their own milk.
A dozen years later, Strafford
Organic Creamery employs eight local
people outside the family. The farm
supports 60 cows that rotate through
145 acres of pasture over the course
of a year, producing around 1,750
gallons of milk per week. A portion
of the milk is turned into pints of
premium ice cream. Recently, any
extra production has gone to Vermont
Farmstead Cheese in nearby Woodstock, to become a parmesan cheese
that is still aging and has yet to hit the
market. In such an uncertain line of
work, Huyffer and Ransom, the lawyer
and the farmer, continually look for
efficiencies, higher margins, new markets. And they keep dancing.
Yes, the volume is small compared
to most commercial herds. But their
cows are content and the results
are delicious. “You can’t do this on a
bigger scale and have it be as good,”
Huyffer says.
become used to the varied demands
of a start-up enterprise. After several hours of paperwork and phone
calls, it’s off to Waterbury Center, 45
miles away, where the couple rents a
commercial kitchen, to cook and jar
their jellies. Then, maybe around 10
p.m., it’s back home to prepare more
labels and shipments. Typically, they
don’t get to sleep until 1:30 a.m. “Long
days,” says Walter. “If we just do 12
hours, it’s been an easy one.”
Potlicker’s story begins in the fall
of 2011, when Nancy, home alone
while Walter had an externship in
Washington, D.C., fretted about running out of fruit for the winter. She
started canning—“It was an addiction,” she says—and quickly latched
on to jelly making. She experimented
with unusual flavors made from the
beer of Vermont microbreweries and
wines such as burgundy and chablis.
By the holidays, creations were gaining attention at different fairs; the
following summer Potlicker jellies hit
farmers markets and stores in central
Vermont. Today, the company is a
full-time job for the Warners, and their
jellies are sold online and in stores
across 13 states, with 3,000 jars of the
stuff shipped from the couple’s home
each month.
The company’s success has been
expedited by Walter’s legal education.
His work for the new business has run
the gamut, from setting up the Limited
Liability Corporation (LLC) to weeding through Vermont’s Department
of Health regulations to sorting out
the trademark registration process.
A Food Regulation and Policy course
he took at VLS helped him navigate
the specific and sometimes obscure
federal regulations for labeling. “We’ve
definitely saved ourselves a few thousand dollars in legal fees,” Walter says.
In a portion of the food economy
famous for its wafer-thin profit margins, those thousands of dollars make
a difference. But there’s a deeper
difference the legal training makes:
it has to do with self-sufficiency;
with personally understanding the
laws that govern your business and
your livelihood.
28
FOOD FIGHTER
Paige Tomaselli ’04
By Jamie Renner
F
rom her office in San Francisco, the Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Food
Safety (CFS), Paige Tomaselli, lives to
fight “factory farms.” Her mission: to
protect animals, the environment, and
the public health from the practices
which these farms routinely employ.
Indeed, Tomaselli and her D.C.-based
organization have multiple cases
pending in federal and state courts. As
plaintiffs, CFS has sued the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA), seeking
access to records regarding controversial animal growth drugs; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
for withdrawing a proposal that would
have allowed the agency to collect
information, including numbers of
animals, from so-called Concentrated
Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs);
and the state of Texas, for allegedly
failing to enforce sanitation requirements against large egg producers. As
defendant-interveners, the Center for
Food Safety has sought to uphold limits on CAFO pollution under the Clean
Water Act.
Why target factory farms? Tomaselli cites animal welfare violations,
environmental hazards, and worker
abuse. “Most people don’t understand
the gravity of the issues,” she says.
“Unless you search for the information, you won’t see it. It’s not in the
news, not in your face. If more people
knew, they wouldn’t necessarily not
eat meat, but they’d choose more carefully what they did eat.”
Tomaselli first studied factory
farming at Humboldt State University,
where, as a philosophy major, she
took courses in Environmental Ethics,
the Ethics of Genetic Engineering,
and Animal Ethics. “CAFOs brought
me into this world. I was appalled by
conditions at factory farms,” she says.
After asking a professor and mentor,
Susan Armstrong, how to make a difference, Tomaselli was encouraged to
go to law school and then work as a
non-profit advocate.
At Vermont Law, Tomaselli studied
animal law and environmental law,
participated in the Environmental and
Natural Resources Law Clinic, served
as President of the Student Animal
Legal Defense Fund, and published a
“Detailed Discussion of International
Comparative Animal Cruelty Laws.”
She focused on animal welfare and
the environmental implications
of agribusiness.
After VLS, she worked for two years
as a staff attorney at Sher Leff in San
Franciso, representing public water
suppliers and public agencies seeking remediation from petrochemical
corporations for groundwater contamination. In 2008, she joined the
Center for Food Safety, a non-profit
public interest and environmental
advocacy organization “working to
protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful
food production technologies and by
promoting organic and other forms
of sustainable agriculture.” The center
offered Tomaselli the opportunity
to re-focus on the issue that had
moved her to attend law school in the
first place.
“Historically, it’s been hard to find
ways to challenge them,” according
to Tomaselli. In her view, “powerful lobbying, government subsidies,
weak regulatory enforcement, and
the prevelance of confidential business information” inhibit reform. But
she is already winning her battles. In
October 2013, CFS and eight other U.S.
food safety, agriculture, public health,
29
and environmental groups, compelled
the FDA to withdraw its approval for
three of four arsenic-based animal
feed additives and 98 of 101 associated
arsenic-based animal drugs. According
to the center, despite being deleterious to the public health, “arsenic is
added to poultry feed for the purposes
of inducing faster weight gain on less
feed, and creating the perceived appearance of a healthy color in meat
from chickens, turkeys, and hogs.”
She is not stopping to celebrate.
The way Tomaselli sees it, the FDA
withdrew only 98 of its 101 prior approvals. “Now,” she says, in addition
to her expanding caseload, her work
on the Board of the San Francisco Permaculture Guild, and her move to the
East Bay (where she is busy creating
a garden and habitats for ducks and
bees), “I’m working to stop the other
three approvals.”
“Unless you search for
the information, you
won’t see it. It’s not in
the news, not in your
face. If more people
knew, they wouldn’t
necessarily not eat
meat, but they’d choose
more carefully what
they did eat.”
Paige Tomaselli ’04
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
Turning the Tide
Meghan Jeans JD’02/MSEL’03
By Kristen Fountain
T
he Red Lobster restaurant
chain and the New England
Aquarium may not seem
like the most natural of partners,
but Meghan Jeans, director of the
Boston-based aquarium’s Conservation Programs, is busy making this
connection work. In this case, Darden
Restaurants—the parent company of
well-known restaurants such as Olive
Garden, The Capitol Grille, Yard House,
and Red Lobster—is committed to
advancing seafood sustainability. In addition to leading the aquarium’s conservation policy efforts, Jeans marshals a
diverse team of scientific and technical
staff to help Darden and other major
seafood-buying companies identify
practical steps towards that goal.
Unsustainable fishing and aquaculture practices pose significant threats
to environmental and human health
worldwide. Companies that rely on
those resources are feeling mounting
pressure to address these threats in a
more holistic and coordinated fashion.
Increasingly, corporate/NGO partnerships are becoming a key strategy for
seafood-buying companies to mitigate
risk and demonstrate good corporate
citizenship. Meanwhile, conservation
organizations like the New England
Aquarium recognize that private-sector
corporations can provide critical market and political leverage to influence
positive changes on the water. Towards
that end, the aquarium’s “Sustainable Seafood Program” partners with
companies—including Darden, Gorton’s
Seafood, The Fresh Market, and Ahold
USA (the parent company of the Giant
LOQUITUR
and Stop & Shop supermarket chains)—
to help them become better stewards
of the marine resources upon which
their businesses depend.
The aquarium’s team of wild fisheries and aquaculture specialists handle
a wide-range of activities, including
conducting environmental risk assessments of their partners’ supply chains;
providing procurement recommendations; developing educational materials for staff, suppliers and customers;
“We recognize that
improving ocean health
and inspiring a sense
of stewardship requires
that we bring a diverse
range of expertise to
the table.”
Meghan Jeans JD’02/MSEL’03
and facilitating corporate support of
key conservation initiatives. In addition, there is increasing public (and
sometimes shareholder) expectation
that companies will utilize both their
buying power as well as their political muscle to drive change. The New
England Aquarium facilitates corporate
engagement on federal legislative and
regulatory issues to strengthen fisheries management, deter illegal fish-
30
ing, and improve seafood traceability.
They also help their partners engage
in more discrete issues, particularly
where there are direct threats to the
sustainability of a company’s seafood
supply. In this light, the U.S. seafood
industry can be a global force for positive change—whether it’s opposing the
proposed Pebble Mine project that
threatens the commercial and ecological health of Alaska’s Bristol Bay or
pushing for reforms in the harvest and
labor practices in the Honduran spiny
lobster fishery.
The aquarium’s fisheries program is
also working with other advocacy and
research groups on several complementary projects. NEA has partnered
with the National Geographic Society
and Conservation International, for
example, to develop the world’s first
comprehensive Ocean Health Index, “a
sort of Dow Jones for the ocean,” Jeans
notes. The index will describe how
the policies of different countries are
affecting marine health with a single
number on a hundred-point scale.
The job involves “a little bit of
everything,” says Jeans, who took the
helm there in January 2012. Working at
the intersection of law, policy, science,
and business reflects the reality that
sustainable food issues and their solutions will require a multi-disciplinary
approach. “It definitely promotes ADD,”
says Jeans, “but we recognize that
improving ocean health and inspiring a
sense of stewardship requires that we
bring a diverse range of expertise to
the table.”
© CI/photo by Keith L awrence
Tuna fishing boat in Manta, Ecuador.
A special welcome to
the Class of 2013!
The Vermont Law School Alumni Association (VLSAA)
welcomes you to a group of over 6,000 VLS alumni—
in all 50 states and in 30 countries around the world.
For information about the VLSAA, visit
http://connect.vermontlaw.edu/VLSAA.
Don’t forget! Log on to vlsConnect and update your alumni profile
today. You don’t want to miss out on:
·Networking, educational, and happy hour events in your area
· Homecoming Weekend
· Campus news and on-campus event invitations
· Career Services announcements
· Searching the online Alumni Directory
· VLSAA election information
·Class-specific news, class gift updates, and Class Notes requests
· and of course, Loquitur!
http://connect.vermontlaw.edu
LOQUITUR
32
class notes
Notes from the Vermont Law
School Alumni Association
Congratulations to all my fellow VLSers—we are now the proud alumni of
“a law school of a certain age.” The
2013/2014 academic year represents
VLS’ 40th anniversary. As many of us
know, hitting that milestone brings
with it a certain amount of introspection and reflection.
Part of that process includes
looking at where we have been: VLS
has graduated over 6,500 advocates,
awarding JDs, Masters, and LLMs to
alumni who now live and work in all
50 states, and almost 30 countries. We
have graduates impacting our communities and our world, doing a broad
range of work: in federal, state, and
local governments; in private industry; in law firms large and small; in
consulting; in non-profits; in NGOs;
in every sector, industry, and subject
area you could think of. Our strength
lies, not just as Louis Pasteur said, in
our tenacity, but most clearly in our
incredible range of vision, geography
and culture, and approach to problem
solving.
Reflecting on where we have been
also leads to reflection about where we
should next head. As an institution,
VLS continues to build on the diversity
of its alumni, training the next generation of advocates and problem solvers.
We are taking education and scholarship to a higher level—examining the
hard issues that confront our country
and our world, from our broad and
multi-disciplinary perspective.
One of the many issues VLS has
committed to studying, food, is
something many of us take for granted,
something that is a struggle for others, and something intimately tied to
almost every hot-button issue making
headlines today. Having just finished
the winter holiday season, we know
that food brings us together, and yet it
also pulls us apart. The VLS Center for
Agriculture and Food Systems (CAFS)
will work to bridge those divides, to
draw on the diversity of our many
alumni, particularly those working on
food and agricultural issues, and to
directly tackle the many interrelated
environmental, social, regulatory,
health, immigration, political, and
cultural issues tied up in that simple
concept of “food.”
I hope this issue of the Loquitur
gives you plenty of food for thought.
1976
1977
1979
Mark Portnoy
[email protected]
Sam Slaiby reports that on June 1,
2013, the Torrington, Connecticut office of Manasse, Slaiby & Leard, LLP
relocated to 507 East Main Street,
Suite 107, Torrington, CT 06790.
[email protected]
1978
Please email [email protected] if you are
interested in serving as class secretary.
Sincerely,
Karis L. North ’95
President, Vermont Law School
Alumni Association
[email protected]
http://connect.vermontlaw.edu/vlsaa
Deborah Bucknam
[email protected]
1980
Scott Cameron
[email protected]
Scott Cameron, Rick Mullaly, and
Ray Obuchowski recently participated
33
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
class notes
in a golf tournament at Hanover Country Club that raised approximately
$25,000 for the Chris Raleigh ’80 &
Travis Raleigh Memorial Fund at VLS.
The tournament was organized by
Kevin Raleigh in honor of his brother
Chris and ten year old nephew Travis,
who died in a tragic car accident in
Vermont on January 12, 2012. The
endowed Fund was established at VLS
to honor the memories of Chris and
Travis, and the surviving members of
his immediate family, wife Anastasia
and son Jimmy. The Fund, which is
administered by the Dean of Students, provides monetary support to
VLS students in times of need, crisis,
or opportunity, whether personal or
academic. To date we have raised
approximately $35,000 toward the
$50,000 goal.
Fourth Degree member of the Knights
of Columbus, which is the highest
ranking. Fourth Degree members
are the visible arm of the Knights of
Columbus and frequently appear in parades wearing the black tuxedo, cape,
chapeau, and sword.
1983
Martha Lyons
[email protected]
Holly Dustin ’84 and Grady George ’00
1981
Tim McGrath
[email protected]
1982
Larr Kelly
[email protected]
Michele Kupersmith reports “Still in
the Vermont House, fourth term. Vermont Legislature in session January
to May but you wouldn’t know it by the
volume of work most of us carry out
off-session and the actual activity in
the State House. Meanwhile, I am following the work of our Dean, Marc Mihaly, and am excited and proud! VLS
is leading the way in changing how
education is delivered and I say “thank
you”! BTW, he cited Professor David
Firestone as being a big player—I am
not surprised! Hi to all!”
Ron Peles has recently become a
LOQUITUR
ing in the Hanover/Norwich area. We
enjoy working with them and getting
to know them. I am thrilled to see how
much progress VLS is making!”
Members of the Cl ass of 1983 at their thirtieth
reunion.
1984
Leslie Nielsen embarked on a hiking
tour this summer through Zion National Park with Jennifer Diffley ’15,
Kathy Hassey ’84, and Laura Rehfeldt.
They were prepared for extreme heat,
but ran into record monsoon rains,
lightning, and incredible scenery. During the summer, Jennifer worked with
Leslie and Laura at the Clark County,
Nevada, District Attorney’s Office in
the Civil Division. Jennifer is back in
South Royalton for her second year at
VLS. Kathy still lives in South Royalton
and occasionally visits Leslie for skiing and backpacking trips in Utah.
Please email [email protected] if you are
interested in serving as class secretary.
Holly Dustin and Grady George
’00 are Senior Financial Advisors at
Ledyard Financial Advisors, with offices in Hanover and New London, New
Hampshire. They advise clients about
how to manage their wealth and about
the tax-efficient transferring of assets
in connection with estate planning
and philanthropic giving. In addition
they work with clients on financial
planning and retirement planning. “It
is fun work” notes Dustin, who lives in
Brookfield, Vermont. George, who lives
in Royalton, Vermont with his wife and
four children, observes: “It is great to
see so many VLS graduates practic-
34
Leslie Nielsen ’84, Jennifer Diffley ’15, K athy
Hassey ’84, and Laura Rehfeldt in Zion National
Park
class notes
1985
1988
Please email [email protected] if you are
interested in serving as class secretary.
[email protected]
Frank Twohill recently won his
eleventh election to the Branford, Connecticut, Representative Town Meeting; this is the legislative body for the
town. Frank has served on the body
for 21 years, and he will chair the $60
million Education Committee.
1986
1991
Peg Stolfa
[email protected]
Members of the Cl ass of 1988 at their twent y
fif th reunion.
1987
Mark Ouellette
[email protected]
1992
Margaret Olnek
[email protected]
[email protected]
Lynne Mitchell hosted Aimee Goddard ’15 for a legal internship this
summer at New Hampshire Hospital
(NHH) in Concord. Aimee worked on
a variety of legal matters affecting
NHH’s patients and successfully litigated a hearing, which ended just before
she headed back to begin her second
year at VLS. Lynne says “We enjoyed
and appreciated Aimee’s contributions
this summer and we are confident she
will be successful in her future legal
career.”
U.S. Small Business Administration,
becoming the third-only attorney in
Rhode Island to receive that qualification.
1989
[email protected]
1990
Mario Gallucci
[email protected]
James Cantlon and his wife Holly
welcomed a daughter, Reardyn Joy
Cantlon, into the world on October
22, 2010. He is still with the U.S. Small
Business Administration Office of
General Counsel in Washington, D.C.
and was promoted to Deputy Associate General Counsel for Labor and
Employment Litigation in September.
Let him know if you are ever in D.C. to
meet for dinner and drinks.
Mario Gallucci announces that his
new television show, called “Partners
in Crime,” is scheduled to air on the
USA Network this spring. The show
focuses on Mario’s criminal practice in
New York.
Chris Rhodes recently earned the
prestigious certification of Designated 504 Closing Attorney from the
Office of the General Counsel for the
35
Tom Basting is the co-chair of the
litigation section at Briggs and Morgan,
P.A. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He focuses his practice on defending major
waste companies, utilities, railroads,
manufacturers, and trucking companies in a “veritable smorgasbord” of
claims. He is vice-chair of the Hennepin County Bar Association ethics committee responsible for investigating
ethical complaints and recommending
discipline for violations. Tom writes:
“My son is a junior at the University of
Minnesota and is majoring in biochemistry. He’s generally busy with lab
work or on campus activities, but he
usually stops by my house on Sundays
to deplete my beer fridge and say hi.
My daughter is a junior in high school
and just significantly increased my
insurance rates by finally getting her
driver’s license. As for me, I am getting
remarried next March after a several
year hiatus from the institution. My
fiancé is a doctor of musical arts and a
professional cellist with the Minnesota
Opera Orchestra, so it’s fair to say that
I’ve outkicked my coverage. Oh, and
we are learning to play bridge (really). I
occasionally run into Molly Hapgood,
not literally yet, as she bikes and I run
around Lake Harriet in Minneapolis.
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
class notes
Tim ’90 and Kathryn ’91 Fetterly live
in my neighborhood and we still get
together for drinks, cards, and dinner
(well, not always dinner).”
Dave Foley JD’92/MSL’93 reports
that he and wife Heather are doing well.
They have two kids: Walt (15 years old)
and Megan (12 years old). Dave successfully ran for reelection to a third term as
Chautauqua County (New York) District
Attorney this November. He recently
had dinner with Chief Justice Roberts.
Dave Foley JD’92/MSEL’93 with Chief Justice John
Roberts.
Leslie Fourton JD’92/MSL’93 just
produced, played on, and released a
new jazz/jazz fusion CD entitled ‘Out of
Nowhere!’ that is getting good reviews.
It generally falls somewhere between
post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B
grandeur. His day job is with a team of
twenty attorneys at Mayer Brown LLP
in New York in Securities Litigation
with a focus on Securitization.
Jeffrey Lee JD/MSL left his litigation partnership at GCA Law Partners
in Silicon Valley in May to join his
client Live365, Inc.—an internet radio
network—as Senior Vice President and
Chief Legal Officer. He says he has had
fun working with creative people in the
music and technology industries. His
wife Tilly just became the executive
director of her transportation agency
in San Francisco, and their boys, seven
and four years old, are keeping them
“crazy busy.” Life is good out in northern California.
Jessica Oski is now a lobbyist in
Montpelier, Vermont with Sirotkin &
Necrason and works with many VLS
LOQUITUR
alumni every day. She says “I live with
my 10 year old daughter in a great
neighborhood in Burlington, a few
doors away from Bob Behrens JD/
MSL’93 and his family. I’ve recently
taken up Mah Jong and skydiving.
Spent a lovely evening in August on the
shores of Lake Champlain visiting with
Margaret Olnek and John Beiswenger
JD/MSL.”
Claire H. Prince MSL is Special
Counsel with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental
Control’s Office of General Counsel
(SCDHEC), working with the Brownfields, Hazardous Waste, and Underground Storage Tank programs. Prior to
joining the Office of General Counsel,
Claire was the Assistant Chief of the
Bureau of Land and Waste Management
at SCDHEC. After sending her youngest
son off to college at the University of
California, Los Angeles, Claire enjoyed
an “empty nest” cruise on the Rhine
River in October.
Tim Shea is a partner at Certilman Balin Adler & Hyman, LLP in
Hauppauge, New York, specializing in
Land Use and Real Estate. He has a
wonderful wife, Danielle, and three little
boys, Brady, Cassius, and Emmitt (ages
3, 2 and 1!).
In the past two years, Carole Wacey
got married, bought a 1910 round house
(“it’s a turret”) in Forest Hills (Queens,
New York), and began a new position as
Vice President of Education at WNET/
Thirteen (after running a nonprofit for
the past 10 years). She hopes to hear
from you if you are passing through
NYC.
Fred Zeytoonjian JD/MSL reports:
“On my last work trip to California I met
Alan Lewis ‘93 for coffee at the Ferry
Building Marketplace in San Francisco. I
then drove to Reno, Nevada to hang out
with Chris “Eddie” Lynch JD/MSL for
the weekend. We lost money gambling,
drank Wet Woodies, hiked up to a waterfall in the Mt. Rose Wilderness and
ate some great food. Oh yeah, I also fell
into Lake Tahoe.”
36
Fred Zey toonjian and Chris Lynch (both JD/
MSL’92) hiking in the Mt. Rose Wilderness,
Nevada.
1993
Lainey Schwartz
[email protected]
Members of the Cl ass of 1993 at their
twentieth reunion.
Al an Strasser JD/MSL’93 submit ted this picture
of the alumni-student ultimate frisbee game
at Homecoming Weekend 2013. Pictured in the
front row, from lef t: Mat t Iler ’93, Al an, and
Patrick Kennedy ’93.
class notes
1994
[email protected]
Walter French reports that after 17
years as a sole practitioner in Brattleboro, Vermont, his wife Jodi French
has joined his practice. (Walter also
reports that he got married a while
back.) Jodi read onto the bar under
Walter’s supervision (“Buy One, Get
One!”) and practiced at Fisher & Fisher, also in Brattleboro, for five years
before forming French & French with
Walter. They will not need to change
the F&F monogramming on the bling
Jodi brought with her.
1995
Karen Moore
[email protected]
Peter Cooper married Pascal Maguin
on August 20 in New York City. Peter is
a partner at Cilenti & Cooper, PLLC, an
employment law practice in New York.
Kevin Cruz has been with Gray
Duffy, LLP in Encino, California since
2004. He specializes in business law,
employment law, and insurance law.
Kevin recently obtained a $15 million
judgment in a real estate trust matter.
1996
[email protected]
Judith George JD/MSEL was just
relocated by her employer, Caterpillar
Inc., to the Chicago metropolitan area
in November 2013. She’ll be handling
commercial and corporate governance
matters for a subsidiary, ElectroMotive Diesel. Her family is looking
forward to returning to a large city.
Judith previously spent eleven years
in Washington, D.C., where she met
her husband, Nicholas, a D.C. native.
Caryn Waxman and fellow attorney
Amber Barber announce the opening
of Barber & Waxman Family Law Associates, PLC in Burlington, Vermont.
Caryn is a member of the Family Law
Section of the Vermont Bar Association, and presents advanced trainings
in family law matters to audiences
around New England. She is a 2010
graduate of Leadership Champlain,
and was selected for the Excellence in
Executive Leadership (ExcEL) Class of
2012, both programs presented by the
Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce. She currently serves as a member and chair on the hearing panel of
the Vermont Professional Responsibility Board. Caryn holds the uncommon
distinction as a Fellow of the American
Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, and
provides clients with comprehensive
services for all family law matters.
1998
[email protected]
Members of the Cl ass of 1998 in the
photobooth at their fif teenth reunion.
Nicole Paquette recently moved back
to the Washington, D.C. area, and currently serves as the Vice President of
Wildlife Protection for The Humane
Society of the United States.
1999
Joy Kanwar-Nori
[email protected]
Richard A. Levitt JD/MSEL is pleased
to announce that he was recently named
Associate Director of Corporate & Foundation Relations at Brandeis University.
Caryn Waxman ’96
1997
2000
Cheryl Deshaies
[email protected]
[email protected]
Kimberly Pastewski MSEL submits
that she and her husband, Alex
Pastewski ’02, moved from Vermont
to Florida, as he has accepted a wonderful new job with the NBC TV Station in Tampa. Alex recently received
the Committee on Temporary Shelter
(COTS) 2013 Wilma Rayta Volunteer
of the Year Award for the CD for COTS:
Harmonies for Humanity, Volume 1.
37
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
class notes
2001
[email protected]
2002
Paige Bush-Scruggs
[email protected]
Jennifer (Tomas) Van Wie JD’02/
MSEL’03 announces that on July 25,
2013, Cecilia Rose Van Wie arrived.
Cecilia joins brother Isaac (four and
a half years old) and Abigail (three
years old). Jennifer will have reached
the 10-year mark as an Assistant Attorney General in the Illinois Attorney
General’s Office Environmental Bureau
in February 2014. The family resides in
Third Lake, Illinois.
Resources where she successfully
advocated enactment of regulations to
historically expand oyster sanctuaries
and restore blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay; legislation to deter fish
and wildlife poaching, expand shellfish
aquaculture, improve boating safety,
and increase funding for fisheries
management; and an Executive Order
preparing Maryland for the impacts
of climate change. She authored and
negotiated the Forest Conservation
Act of 2013, making Maryland the first
state in the nation to enact a no-netloss of forest policy and a statewide
tree canopy goal. Olivia recently met
up with Cheryl Coiro MSEL and Molly
Mimier JD/MSEL’05 in Washington,
D.C., to wish Molly safe travels as she
moves to Lima, Peru. Molly will begin
her new career as an independent consultant for the United States Agency
for International Development, after
working as a Foreign Service Officer
and Contracts Attorney for the U.S.
State Department.
child, Jack; they are enjoying parenthood and enjoy taking pictures of Jack
which will surely cause him great grief
later in life. Susan is a Principal at the
law firm of Wuestling & James, LC, in
St. Louis, Missouri, where she focuses
on complex litigation, insurance coverage, and legal malpractice defense.
Susan can be reached at dimond@
wuestlingandjames.com.
Jack Dimond, son of Susan (Schwartzkopf)
Dimond ’04 and Anthony Dimond.
2003
2005
Shannon Bañaga
[email protected]
Meg Munsey and Kelly Singer
[email protected]
2004
Spencer Hanes
[email protected]
Members of the Class of 2003 at their tenth
reunion.
Olivia Campbell Andersen MSEL now
works for Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley as Senior Advisor to the
Governor’s Chief of Staff. Prior to her
new position in the Statehouse, she
served as the Legislative Director for
the Maryland Department of Natural
LOQUITUR
Caroline Fisher still lives in Boston
and is currently enjoying her ‘new’
role as the Director of Government
Affairs for the New England region for
Otsuka America Pharmaceutical. The
focus of her work is on mental health
policy and advocacy, which builds off
of her work on health care reform
initiatives in the Massachusetts state
legislature. Best ‘bonus’ of the job....
Vermont is in her territory!
Susan Schwartzkopf married Anthony Dimond in October 2011 in Riviera Maya, Mexico. Her wedding was
attended by VLS graduates Jen Paull
JD’05/MSEL’06, David Rugh, and
Paige Tomaselli. In December 2012,
Susan and Tony welcomed their first
38
On February 23, 2013, Steve Brown
married Lauren Henry in Grafton,
Vermont. VLS alumni David Singer
‘04, Kelly Smith Singer JD/MSEL,
Meg Munsey, and Jamie Bush were
in attendance. Steve and Lauren live
in Brattleboro where he is a Deputy
State’s Attorney for Windham County.
Jamie Bush ‘05, Meg Munsey ‘05, David Singer
‘04, and Kelly Smith Singer JD/MSEL’05 at Steve
Brown ’05’s wedding to L auren Henry.
class notes
Penelope Sofia Diaz Curbelo, daughter of
Carolina Curbelo ’05 and husband Jose E. Diaz.
Carolina Curbelo announces the
birth of daughter Penelope Sofia Diaz
Curbelo, who was born on September
23, 2013 at 9:21 a.m. to proud parents
(Carolina and Jose E. Diaz) and big
brother Manuel. She weighed eight
pounds, 11 ounces. Currently, Carolina
is a legal liaison for the New Jersey
Department of Labor and Workforce
Development, where she’s worked
since July 2012. She is also a board
member on the Vermont Law School
Alumni Alumni Association and cochairs the New York City and New
Jersey alumni regional groups.
Dr. Betty Grizzle MSEL earned a
Master’s degree in Clinical Research
from the University of California, San
Diego, in March 2013 while continuing
to work at her current position with
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Carlsbad Field Office) in San Diego County,
California. She hopes to use this new
degree to transition into a career in
the health sciences field. The educational experience at VLS has been a
distinct advantage in her current position at the Service and is expected to
be just as valuable for a future career
in clinical research.
Sheri Lawson has been living in
Hawaii since 2005, and has been employed as Deputy Prosecuting Attorney
for the County of Hawaii for the last
three years. Prior to that, she worked
as a Deputy Public Defender for the
State of Hawaii and clerked for Third
Court Judge Elizabeth Strance on the
Big Island for a few years. The weather
Vermont Law alumni happily reunited at the 21st
Fall Conference of the ABA Section of Environment,
Energy, and Resources in Baltimore, Maryland
in October. From left to right: (standing) Kyle
Landis-Marinello MSEL’05, Hart Knight ’06, Rebecca
Turner ’08, Tim Sullivan JD/MSEL’05, Michael
Kondrla ’14; (SEATED) JENNY DRUST JD/MSEL’05, AMY
MANZELLI JD’05/MSEL’07, AND MIKE MYERS ‘93.
on the Big Island is very nice—very,
very different from the freezing cold
temps and snow in South Royalton.
2006
Derek Campbell JD’06/MSEL’07 and Quoc Nguyen
JD/MSEL’08 were married on June 3, 2013 in a
small ceremony with family in Washington,
D.C.’s Rock Creek Park. Their daughter Iris
Simone Nguyen Campbell, born in September
2012, was Quoc’s something blue.
Ashley Cottingham
[email protected]
Ebony Riggins
[email protected]
Ashley Carson Cottingham and
her husband Carroll welcomed their
son Chester Ross Cottingham into the
world on April 5, 2013. They recently
relocated from Washington, D.C. to
Portland, Oregon where Ashley is now
the Director of Policy and Advocacy at
Compassion & Choices, an organization dedicated to improving care and
expanding choice at the end of life.
Will Senning and Susan Baker
Senning JD/MSEL’08 welcomed a
healthy, happy, beautiful daughter on
October 4, 2013, just six days after
attending the VLS reunion. Stella
Grace Esther Senning (“Stella Grace”)
weighed a mighty five pounds, 13
ounces at birth, and the whole family
is doing great. Will has served as the
Director of Elections and Campaign
39
Ashley Carson Cot tingham ’06, with son
Chester Ross.
Stell a Grace, daughter of Will Senning ’06 and
Susan Senning JD/MSEL’08.
Finance in the Vermont Secretary of
State’s Office since April 2013. Susan
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
class notes
will return to her position as Planning and Zoning Administrator for the
Town of Waitsfield after her maternity
leave ends in January 2014. They live
off of Camel’s Hump Road in Duxbury.
2007
Greg Dorrington
[email protected]
Liz Lucente
[email protected]
Shannon JD/MSEL and Joe Griffo
welcomed their first child, Emerson
Chase, to the world on August 19.
Shannon is now at Environmental
Protection Agency headquarters in
Washington, D.C., and Joe is still
stationed at the Pentagon, working for
the Department of the Navy.
Chris King JD’07/MSEL’08 at his wedding. Tim Duggan JD/MSEL’07 and Chris Miller JD/MSEL’07 are
among his groomsmen.
K ate Burton L amson ’07 and Susan Keane
McManus ’07, hard at work at the Bennington
Count y, Vermont, Office of the Public
Defender.
Arlo Gregory Schwarting, newborn son of Liz
Lucente JD/MSEL’07. She writes that “He came
out swinging!”
CLA litigation at Hunsucker Goodstein
PC in Lafayette, California.
Caroline Keefe JD/MSEL and
husband Luis belatedly announce the
arrival of their son, Luke Lourenço
Shannon JD/MSEL’07 and Joe JD’07 Griffo’s son,
Emerson Chase.
Maureen (Bayer) Hodson JD/
MSEL and her husband David are
overjoyed to announce the birth of
their son Ryan Timothy, born October
22 at home. Ryan joins his two year
old sister, Lily. Maureen practices CER-
LOQUITUR
Charlot te Catherine, daughter of Jessica
Olson ’07.
Luke, son of Caroline Keefe JD/MSEL’07.
40
Teixeira, on July 26, 2012. Luke is
now a rambunctious one year old who
loves books, Cheerios, exploring the
outdoors, and getting dirty.
Chris King JD’07/MSEL’08 has
quite a bit to report since his last bitter
class notes
update of yore. Most excitingly, he was
married in Charleston, South Carolina,
on May 25th. For those cats reading this
who were there, thanks again for making it! He tied the knot with Carol DeMarco of Kinnelon, New Jersey. The two
first met at the VLS Solutions Conference and visiting students’ weekend in
2004, but the timing was not yet right.
He is also pleased to report that the job
front finally came together. Just after
the wedding, he began working for the
Office of the Solicitor, Division of Indian
Affairs at the Department of Interior
in Washington D.C. He and his wife, an
attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency, have settled in nicely on
Capitol Hill, shutdown notwithstanding.
A pretty good year for Mr. King indeed.
Kate Burton Lamson and Susan
Keane McManus are happy to report
they are now working together as staff
attorneys at the Bennington County,
Vermont Office of the Public Defender. Together they proudly fight the
government. Kate and her husband,
John Lamson ’06, are also the proud
parents of an adorable little girl, Penelope. Susan and her husband, Dan
McManus ’01 are the proud parents of
three dogs and Dan’s two children.
Liz Lucente JD/MSEL reports that
she and Kyle Schwarting just had their
first child, Arlo Gregory Schwarting,
on October 28. They are all happy and
healthy, and the poodles can’t wait to
meet him.
Melissa Mullarkey JD’07/MSEL’04
welcomed her second daughter Vivian
(much adored by older sister Stella)
in March. Melissa works for Recycled
Energy Development, which recently
acquired the utilities business from
Kodak in Rochester, Illinois. She says
the transaction is filled with interesting environmental law issues.
Jessica (Biamonte) Olson and
husband Jodin Olson welcomed Charlotte Catherine Olson on July 5, 2013.
She entered the world weighing five
pounds, 10 ounces. Big brothers, Alex
(14 years old) and Brooks (two years
old), are smitten and can’t wait until
she can throw a ball with them.
Maggie Stubbs JD/MSEL writes
“On September 20, 2013, I married
Jonathan Doran. We were married in
the Charles County Circuit Courthouse
courtyard in La Plata, Maryland by the
judge I clerked for right after graduation. We threw a ‘post-married’ party
on October 5th in my parent’s Gambrills, Maryland yard. Other VLSers
in attendance were Kayla (Smith)
Anderson JD/MSEL, Vic Aufiero JD/
MSEL ’08, Samantha ’08 and Max ’08
Beaulieu, Shannon (Vallance) Griffo
JD/MSEL, and Christina (“Dallas”)
Switzer ’08. My dog Sampson, a regular at VLS rugby games and around
South Royalton, was present for both
the wedding and the party. Jon grew
up in Colchester, Vermont on a camp
on the banks of Lake Champlain. Jon
and I also bought a home together in
May 2013 in Newington, Virginia. We
continue to foster bully breed dogs for
Mid Atlantic Bully Buddies, and collected donations for the group for our
wedding.
Johanna and Rory Thibault are
excited to announce the arrival of
their second little boy, Cody Stephen
Thibault, last May. They also adopted a
military working dog—named Lando—
earlier this year, and he has been an
incredible addition to the family. The
Army still has the Thibaults living
in Bavaria where Rory left the Trial
Defense world and is now a Senior
Trial Counsel for European Forces in
Bavaria. Johanna recently became a
VLS student again and is earning her
LLM in Environmental Law through
the Distance Learning program. When
they aren’t working or drinking good
German beer, they are traveling as
much as possible throughout Europe,
and enjoying every minute of it.
Johanna ’07 and Rory ’07 Thibault, with sons
River and Cody.
On September 2012, Bill White and
Laura Malaga-Dieguez welcomed into
the world their daughter, Ana. She is
happy and healthy, and when beset by
sleeplessness, Dad can ease her into
a profound restful slumber with a few
stories about work. Bill is an associate
at Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck, LLP,
and Laura is a Pediatric Nephrologist at New York University Langone
Medical Center. They are always happy
to catch up with members of the VLS
alumni community visiting New York.
Rebecca and Steven Whitley
welcomed Jackson Garland Whitley
into the world on September 15, 2013,
Maggie Stubbs JD/MSEl’07 and new husband
and recently moved from Concord to
Jonathan Doran.
Hopkinton, New Hampshire, along
with their yellow lab, Bodie. Steven
41
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
class notes
Bill White ’07 and daughter Ana.
Alison Share and Jami Westerhold JD/MSEL tied the knot June 1,
2013 on the shores of Lake Champlain
in beautiful Vergennes, Vermont.
The day had lawn-game weather, an
all-vegetarian menu, and Baily the
ring master dog. It was a success all
around. VLS was well represented with
Professor Jackie Gardina as the officiant along with Board member Judge
Peter Hall and numerous VLSers in
attendance.
practices municipal law at Mitchell
Municipal Group in Laconia, New
Hampshire and Rebecca is still practicing at the Disabilities Rights Center in
Concord. “Life is good!”
2008
Samantha Santiago Beaulieu
[email protected]
Jamie Williams
[email protected]
Members of the Class of 2008 at their fif th
reunion.
Lauren Isaacoff JD/MSEL was recently
married to Lee Raichlen and after a
10-month federal clerkship with the
Honorable Cathy L. Waldor, U.S.M.J. in
the U.S. District Court for the District of
New Jersey, Lauren has returned to Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, P.C., where
she has worked as an associate in the
Litigation Section since graduation.
LOQUITUR
At the June wedding of Alison Share ’08 and
Jamie Westerhold JD/MSEL’08. Back Row: Laura
Furrey ’08, Professor Rebecca Purdom JD/
MSEL’96, Betsy Catlin ’08, Sarah Cogan ’08,
Samantha Santiago Beaulieu ’08, Andrea
Steiling ’08, Professor Jackie Gardina,
Megan Schaeffer MELP’08, K ara Miller, Brit ta
Hinrichsen ’07. Front Row: Anna Wildeman ’07,
Christina Switzer ’08, Maggie (Stubbs) Doran
JD/MSEL’07, Alison, Jami, Becky Turner ‘08, and
Max Beaulieu ‘08. Meghan Cl ark O’Neill ’08 was
in attendance, but not pictured.
2009
John Miller
[email protected]
Timothy Connolly has joined the firm
Preti Flahery as an Associate with the
firm’s Litigation Group. He practices in
the firm’s Portland, Maine office where
he focuses on a wide range of matters, including commercial litigation,
insurance litigation, and professional
liability.
42
Tim Connolly ’09
In early 2013, Geoffrey Sewake JD/
MELP and his wife left Sunset Park in
Brooklyn, New York to travel throughout Southeast Asia for three and a half
months. Upon returning state-side,
they moved to Vermont. They are currently living in St. Johnsbury. Geoffrey
is a Regional Planner at the North
Country Council, the regional planning
commission for the North Country
region of New Hampshire.
2010
Cara Cookson
[email protected]
Laurie Wheelock
[email protected]
Brent Bohan JD’10/MSEL’07 was
elected to the King County (Washington) Bar Association’s Young Lawyer’s
Division’s Board of Trustees in May.
He was recently a speaker at the
swearing-in ceremony for over 300
newly licensed attorneys. He also sold
his practice and now works for a litigation firm in downtown Seattle.
Allison Buckley MELP and Eric
Gentino ’12 were married in August
in Keene, New York. They now live in
Ballston Spa, New York. Eric is a construction law lawyer in Saratoga and
Allison works for the New York Depart-
class notes
with a companion study guide titled
“How Does the Constitution Keep Up
with the Times? Twelve Lessons on
the Nation’s Founding Document and
Its Application in 21st Century.”
Genesis Miller JD/MELP says
“Chuck and I welcomed Thayne Ever
Miller Weed into the world on July 24,
2013.”
Alison Buckley MELP’10 and Eric Gentino ’12 on
their wedding day.
ment of Environmental Conservation
as a Natural Resources Planner.
An article that Michael Cole wrote
as an Independent Research Project
under the supervision of Professor
Jackie Gardina his 3L year in 2009
and published in 2011, A Blueprint for
EPA: How the Agency Can Overcome the
Statute of Limitations when Enforcing PSD
Under the Clean Air Act, 31 Utah Env. L.
Rev. 182, was cited by the Third Circuit
Court of Appeals in the opinion United
States v. EME Homer City Generation, L.P.,
727 F.3d 274, 291 (3d Cir. 2013). He has
another article published in Florida
State University’s Journal of Land Use
and Environmental Law, and has recently
accepted an offer to publish a third
article in Resolved: Journal of Alternative
Dispute Resolution at Charleston School
of Law. After leaving VLS, Michael obtained an LLM in Environmental Law
at The George Washington University
Law School, and he currently works
as an Attorney-Advisor at the Office
of Administrative Law Judges for the
Federal Mine Safety and Health Review
Commission.
Jeffrey Heinrick writes “Tracey
Mackenzie Heinrick and I just celebrated two years of wedded bliss. I
work for the Pinal County Public Defender’s Office. Tracey is an attorney
for the Arizona Attorney General’s
Office, working in the Child Welfare
Division. Tracey and I recently added
a new member to our family: Sterling
the Greyhound. He is two years old
Sterling Heinrick, Jeffrey Heinrick ’10’s
newest family member.
and loves to snuggle with Tracey. Kira
Bryers came up with the name. All is
well here in Arizona and we miss our
fellow classmates.”
Dianne Kearns Duncan recently
concluded her tenure as Leadership
Group chair of Constitutionally Speaking. The yearlong pilot project aimed
to encourage spirited, yet civil, dialogue on constitutional issues and to
galvanize support for the reintroduction of meaningful civics education
in New Hampshire schools. Institutional partners in the effort included
the New Hampshire Supreme Court
Society, of which Dianne is a trustee,
the University of New Hampshire
School of Law, and the New Hampshire Humanities Council. The project
kicked off in September 2012 with a
public conversation between retired
U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H.
Souter and PBS Newswoman Margaret
Warner. Its final public event was a
joint appearance in May 2013 by renowned litigators David Boies and Ted
Olson. Educational materials generated by the project include video clips
43
Thayne, son of Genesis Miller JD/MELP’10, was
born July 24, 2013.
Laurie Wheelock JD’10/MSEL’07
and her husband Jim Maximowicz welcomed a baby boy named Riley Aaron
James Maximowicz into the world on
March 15, 2013. The family resides in
Brooklyn.
2011
Amanda George-Wheaton
[email protected]
Sarah McGuire
[email protected]
After traveling to Alaska and working
as a contract attorney for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound with
Perkins Coie LLP, Lisa Campion JD/
MELP returned to Vermont in August
of 2012. Lisa worked as a Law Clerk
with Martin & Associates in Barre,
Vermont. After passing the Vermont
Bar, Lisa became Martin & Associates’
newest Associate Attorney. Lisa works
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
class notes
Alumni at the wedding of Ashley Romeo-Boles
’12 included T yler Corn JD/MELP’12, Erica Lewis
’12, Tracey Ullom JD’12/MELP’13, Susan Let tis
’12 (shown); and Sean Williams ’10 and Janice
Chan JD’11/MELP’10 (not pictured).
At the wedding of Clare Cragan JD/MELP’11 and John Bernetich JD/MELP’11. From lef t to right are:
(back row) Sergio Botifoll ’11, Darin Schroeder ’09, Nate Rectanus ’11, Big Al Weisheit JD/MELP’11,
Benji Borowski JD/MELP’11, Amanda Dumville ’13, Jim E. Abraham JD/MELP’11, Adam Dumville JD/
MELP’11, Kevin Siqveland JD/MELP’11; (middle row) L aura Ethington ’12, Adam Granade, Reade
Wilson ’11, Pete Vetere ’11, Meg Casey JD/MELP’11, L aurie Stern JD/MELP’11, Ashley (Hintz) DeVerna
JD/MELP’11, Molly Watson JD/MELP’11; (front row) E.P. Hutchens ’11, Jim DeVerna’09, Brian Selogie
JD/MELP’11, the bride, Gray Jernigan JD/MELP’11, the groom, Mark Foster ’11, and Ben Leoni ’11.
on a variety of general practice matters in Central Vermont. She’s living in
Montpelier with her Irish Setter, Rock,
and still loving the outdoors.
Clare Cragan JD/MELP and John
Bernetich JD/MELP celebrated their
marriage on August 31 in Richmond,
Vermont with plenty of VLSers in
attendance. A rousing reception followed. Music was supplied by E.P.
Hutchens ’11 (banjo), Gray Jernigan JD/MELP’11 (guitar), and Adam
Granade (upright bass).
2012
Susan Lettis
[email protected]
Lauren Miller
[email protected]
Ricky Armand and Melissa PierreLouis Armand were married in Charlotte, North Carolina on Saturday,
October 6th, 2012. Fellow VLS graduates Kendra Brown, Caroline Morant,
LOQUITUR
mouth College, Rachel has settled into
practice at the firm of DeBonis, Wright
& Carris, P.C. in Poultney, Vermont.
Brent Noyes JD/MELP and Jacqueline Noyes JD/MELP got married in
September of 2012. They are now living
in Maine.
Caroline Morant ’12 (far lef t) and Kendra
Brown ’12 (far right) at tended the wedding
of Ricky Armand ’12 and Melissa Pierre-Louis
Armand. Not shown is Dal ayna Tillman ’12, also
present.
and Dalayna Tillman, were present
for the ceremony.
Becky Fu LLM was nominated as
one of the 2013 Rising Stars by Vermont Business Magazine.
Rachel Margulies JD/MELP became
licensed to practice law in Vermont in
November of 2012 and in New York in
October of 2013. After spending the
year following graduation traveling as
an admissions counselor for VLS and
working as the pre-law advisor at Dart-
44
Brent and Jacqueline Noyes (both JD/MELP’12)
at their September 2012 wedding.
On October 26, 2013, Elle Stenerson
and Ethan Pressly tied the knot in
Oak Brook, Illinois. Elle and Ethan
were joined by many friends and fellow alumni from the VLS community.
Many fond memories of VLS were
shared throughout the weekend, and
they wish everyone the best in life.
Currently, they are enjoying their
lives in Springfield, Illinois, where Elle
class notes
Ethan Pressly ’12 and bride Elle Stenerson
smile wide on their wedding day.
Martin Cosier LLM’13 with wife Jen Cl ark and
newborn son Max, on their adventures abroad.
Doug Johnson JD/MELP’13 with daughter Ruby
Joy and wife Krystal.
continues to teach music and Ethan
practices environmental law.
Ashley Romeo-Boles married
Mark Boles, a Strafford, Vermont local,
after a whirlwind romance following a meeting at his parents’ maple
sugar house. They were married at his
parents’ house, following the tradition of his siblings all marrying there.
Several alumni were in attendance and
the Women’s Rugby team showed up
to support! Ashley passed the Vermont and New Hampshire bars and
is currently working as an associate
at Schuster, Buttrey & Wing, P.A. in
Lebanon, New Hampshire. Mark and
Ashley live in Corinth, Vermont with
their dog and cat.
nance Program within the U.S.-China
Partnership for Environmental Law.
All of us are doing great... and loving
the endless summer in the tropics!”
ers who are environmentally-minded.
Stephanie Tavares-Buhler JD/
MELP was recently hired as the Easement Project Manager at the Marin
Agricultural Land Trust in Point Reyes
Station, California. Stephanie will be
helping to protect small coastal farms
in perpetuity and protect valuable
watersheds in Marin County, California
through the acquisition of voluntary
conservation easements.
Natalie Wicklund received the
Freedom Fighter Award from the
Montana Innocence Project for pro
bono work. The Montana Innocence
Project works to exonerate those who
are wrongfully convicted. Wicklund
has been providing pro bono litigation
assistance in cases seeking to exonerate the innocent using DNA testing.
Natalie Wicklund is now an Assistant
Public Defender with the Office of the
Public Defender in Butte, Montana.
2013
Brian Durkin
[email protected]
Rae Kinkead
[email protected]
Martin Cosier LLM writes “My wife,
Jen Clark, and I were joined by our
first child, Max Cosier, in Bangkok on
October 2. We’ve since headed back to
Yangon, Myanmar (once Max became
an Aussie citizen and then received
his first passport) where I manage the
VLS Myanmar Environmental Gover-
Bailey Dunl ap JD/MELP’13 married Travis
Rogers on October 5, 2013 at Winn Park in
Atlanta, Georgia.
Alex English JD/MELP recently
had an article published by International Rivers on dam removal and
effective watershed management as
a tool for combating climate change:
“Let All Rivers Run to the Sea.”
Doug Johnson JD/MELP and his
wife Krystal celebrated the birth of
their daughter, Ruby Joy, on August
22, 2013. Ruby weighed eight pounds,
two ounces, and was 19.5 inches long
at birth. Everyone is doing well!
As of September 2013, William McMullin MELP has switched careers and
he is now a Realtor in Metro-Detroit
Michigan. He specializes in relocating
people with pets and assists home buy-
45
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
class notes
IN MEMORIAM
On June 20, 2013, Frank Berk ’78
unexpectedly passed away, surrounded by his wife, four children,
and his sister. Frank moved to
South Royalton in 1975 to attend
Vermont Law School where he was
part of the third class, graduating
cum laude in 1978. He fell in love
with Vermont where he would live
for the rest of his life. It is also
where he met many of his closest
lifelong friends. He was a dedicated
member of the South Royalton
community, serving on the school
board for many years, acting as
the town attorney (from his office
“between the Co-op doors”), and
coaching various youth teams. He
cared deeply about the town and
believed he’d stumbled upon the
best place in the world to live. A
memorial service was held on June
26, 2013 in the Jonathon B. Chase
Community Center at Vermont Law
School. Many of his classmates
LOQUITUR
returned to South Royalton for the
ceremony, which was followed by a
reception for family and friends on
the Debevoise Hall Back Lawn.
Edson E. Kaarela ’85, died peacefully at his home after an illness.
He leaves his parents, two sisters,
and three nephews. A Celebration
of Life was held on December 2,
2012 in Gardner, Massachusetts.
Mariann Samaha ’92, a lifelong
resident of Boston’s South End,
passed away on June 6, 2013. She
had been working as a juvenile
defense attorney, representing indigent children in Boston.
Mariann was a dear and devoted
spouse, beloved daughter, and dear
sister, and she is survived by many
loving cousins, nieces, nephews,
neighbors and friends. A memorial
service was held in Boston, Massachusetts on June 21, 2013.
46
Thaddeus Swank Jr. ’91 died April
25, 2013, at a Bangor health care
facility after a long illness. Thaddeus was employed as a Maine
State Trooper before pursuing his
interest in law at Vermont Law
School. After graduation he worked
as a legal consultant for several
companies including the American
Ophthalmological Association. His
ashes are interred at Mount Hope
Cemetery in Bangor, Maine.
In 2013 we also lost the law school’s
founder, Anthony Doria, who succumbed
to a several year battle with heart trouble
and cancer. A full obituary will be published in the next issue of Loquitur.
inter alia
Growing Climate Change
Vermont Law recently announced our Top 10 Environmental Watch List for
2014. This year, with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels having breached a disturbing threshold, the entire list focuses on legal and policy actions that hope
to address our rising global temperature or prepare us to adapt to increasingly
intense weather-related disasters. Food and agriculture play a role: they show up
on the list at #7, in the new federal Farm Bill.
1. Obama’s Decision on the Keystone
Pipeline
President Obama’s awaited decision on the
Keystone XL pipeline has become a proxy
for the larger debate on climate change. Will
Obama allow the pipeline to go forward?
2. Natural Gas: Part of the Solution or Part
of the Problem?
The recent fracking boom may do more
harm than good for the climate if the U.S.
EPA doesn’t do a better job of regulating
methane releases. Even if it does, will cheap
natural gas displace cleaner energy options
like wind and solar?
3. Severe Weather Events and the National
Flood Insurance Program
Will federal flood insurance reforms fully
embrace the new reality of climate change
driving frequent and intense storms?
4. Regulation of Carbon Emissions for
Existing Power Plants Under the Clean
Air Act § 111
Will the U.S. EPA finally propose regulations
that significantly reduce carbon emissions
from existing coal fired power plants?
5. China Regulates CO2 Emissions
Will China’s public pledge to mitigate environmental issues and adopt meaningful
greenhouse gas controls take hold, or will
political obstacles and rapid growth get in
the way?
6. Stationary Sources of Greenhouse Gases
Will the Supreme Court, which recently
let stand the D.C. Circuit’s decision that
greenhouse gases present a danger to the
environment through climate change, allow
the EPA to control greenhouse gases from
stationary sources?
8. Brazil Repeals Forest Code and
Deforestation Accelerates
Will the Brazilian courts uphold constitutional protections for future generations as
a basis to strike down new forest laws that
allow destruction of the world’s climateprotecting forests?
9. Will Montana Coal go to China?
Will a plan to ship coal—the leading source
of CO2 pollution—from Montana to China be
halted following environmental review by
two federal agencies, amid early signs that
China might be stepping away from coal as
preferred energy source?
10. Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate
and Energy
The Pacific Coast Action Plan could be an
effective blueprint for locally driven climate
and energy policy. Will it be implemented
in 2014?
47
7. The Farm Bill as Climate
Change Policy
Will the new Farm Bill’s
policies cause agriculture
to contribute to or mitigate climate change? As
the largest investment in
working lands, the pending Farm Bill may be our
best bet to address agriculture’s contribution to this
secrious issue. Proposed
changes would ironically
reduce conservation programs, which mitigate
climate change, and provide more insurance for
farmers affected by changing conditions, shoring
up profits for commodity
producers.
Vermont Law School—with significant help
from the Environmental Law Center and
the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law—compiles the annual watch list
to enhance public understanding, debate,
and participation in judicial, regulatory,
and legislative actions that significantly
affect people and the natural world. The
Top 10 issues are chosen based on their
significance to the environment and public
well-being, and whether a key development
is expected in the coming year. For more
details on the issues that made the 2014
list, visit http://watchlist.vermontlaw.edu/
W I N T E R 2013 / 14
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LOQUITUR
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w i n t e r 2013 / 14
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