Vermont Bar Association
Board of Managers Meeting
March 22, 2012
Hilton Burlington

Present: Will S. Baker, Amber L. Barber, James F. Carroll, David C. Carter, Therese Corsones, Thomas S. Durkin, Jennifer Emens-Butler, Sandra W. Everitt,Michael E. Kennedy, Daniel H. Maguire, Daniel P. Richardson, Edward J. Tyler, III, Matthew Valerio

Staff: Mary Ashcroft, Bob Paolini, Kevin Ryan, Lisa Maxfield, Laura Welcome

  1. Call to Order: President Jim Carroll called the meeting to order at 10:09 a.m.
  2. Acceptance of Consent Agenda
  1. Minutes – The minutes from the February 24, 2012, meeting were adopted as written.
  2. Treasurer’s Report – Lisa Maxfield reported that attendance for the Mid-Year Meeting is currently around 273. The anticipated expenses for the hotel will be approximately $20,000. The income for CLEs is down from this time last year, but we are marketing our upcoming meetings and have several live programs scheduled between now and the end of this reporting period. Discussion regarding the facility cost for large meetings and possible alternative locations ensued.
  3. Board Committee Reports
  4. Operations – Amber Barber provided a draft of the Disaster Assistance Manual for review. The committee’s goal is to get specific areas needing an update assigned to an appropriate person. Amber stated that they hope to have the manual ready by August 1st. She also asked the Board for input on who may be best to address the areas needing updates. Additional discussion ensued.
  5. Membership – Sandi Everitt reported on the committee meeting regarding those individuals who did not renew their membership this fiscal year. She suggested reaching out to those individuals to find out why they did not renew, by sending out a survey similar to the one we did 2 years ago. Also discussed was the possibility of members being able to vote without being present at the meeting.
  6. Program and Planning – Dan Richardson reported that the Young Lawyers Division is continuing to look intoyoutubevideos and other internet venues to see how other bar associations might be utilizing these resources. The Agriculture Law program is scheduled for June 4th in Montpelier, and they are discussing the seminar line-up for the Annual Meeting in September. Sandi Everitt suggested Cloud based storage would be a good CLE topic. Dan stated that the larger question is how to bring young lawyers into Vermont and how we use Vermont Law School to help keep those graduates in the state. Dan stated they will take these issues on in more depth. Tom Durkin stated that the new Dean would like to foster a better relationship with the VBA and will be contacting Bob Paolini in the near future. Dan also reported that of the incoming 3rd year law students, over ½ are currently working at various law firms. Matt Valerio added that until some incentives are offered, newer lawyers will continue looking outside the state for employment.
    Kevin Ryan stated that the aging population of attorneys in Vermont is concerning, as they will need younger attorney’s to take over their practices. Kevin suggested the idea of developing a committee or task force to work on this.
    Teri Corsones asked about loan forgiveness as an incentive, similar to doctors. Matt Valerio stated that Federal loans for state prosecutors qualify, but not other loans.
    Bob Paolini stated that he was at a BLI conference recently where the future of the profession was discussed and it was suggested that every state bar association have a task force in place to tackle this issue.
    Ted Tyler commented about an article in the New York Times stating that if this is a national trend, we’ll find ourselves competing with larger states. Jim Carroll noted that nationally, there are too many people graduating from law school and not enough jobs to go around. Bob Paolini noted that there are approximately 46,000 graduates and only 20,000 job openings.
    Sandi Everitt asked Matt Valerio if he would be willing to have a program to help graduating students with loans if they agree to work for a set period of time in the Public Defender’s office. Amber discussed an externship program where she went to school and how popular and helpful the program was. Jim Carroll suggested this topic would fit into this year’s retreat discussion, and possibly include the VLS Dean.
    Dan Richardson stated that Mary Ashcroft’s suggestion of matching people up with established firms to read for the law, as opposed to incurring massive debt through law school attendance might be an option. He also noted that loan repayment will always be an issue, but we need to make some decisions and move forward as opposed to continuing to talk in circles with no creative solutions being implemented.
    Tom Durkin mentioned Dave Carter’s idea from last month’s meeting regarding the possibility of student loans being a tax deduction and also stated that it would be good to have some statistics prior to more discussion.
    Jim Carroll noted that this discussion keeps coming up for discussion, with no solutions in sight. Dan Richardson commented that it’s become apparent how complex this problem is. The Board agreed to focus on this at the retreat and include someone who has read for the law and perhaps someone who attended law school at night, as well.
  7. Pro Bono – Mary thanked the Board for approving John Lamson as the Pro Bono recipient at the Mid-Year Meeting. She stated she had the pleasure of interviewing him for the upcoming VBA Journal. Mary also noted she attended the training CLE in Windsor/Orange for a low-bono project.
    Mary noted that all grants have been submitted to the VBF, including the ½ funding for her position. The Rutland Pilot Project places 89-90 cases per year.
    Mary had a poster made with the names of the attorneys who volunteered their services to Pos-Irene victims. Bob noted that those attorneys who are attending the Mid-Year Meeting have a sticker added to their name tag indicating that status. Amber Barber suggested Jim Carroll acknowledge those who have worked without others knowing, and Mary Ashcroft mentioned Lisa Maxfield’s idea of collecting stories from lawyers as to what they did to assist. Mary will compile those stories.
    The Pro Bono Conference will be October 25th at the State House and the theme will be “Vermont Strong.”
    The Equal Justice Conference will be in May and Mary, Bob Paolini and Beth Robinson will attend.
  8. President’s Report – Jim Carroll noted that the VBA was the recipient of a Non-Profit Award last week at the State House. Jim also noted that he as been contacted over the last couple of weeks by reporters looking for comments regarding the Attorney General’s race, particularly whether he thought it would be fair to rate those running according to how much money they brought into the state. Jim stated that he doesn’t feel the VBA should weigh in and wanted all Board members to be aware in case they are also contacted by reporters.
    Jim also noted that he will be attending Law Day with Chief Justice Reiber and Kevin Ryan in early May.
    Jim reported that ABA Day is in April in Washington, DC and the ABA wanted the platform to be “No Courts, No Justice, No Freedom” – however, Jim noted that the Board would choose a different format to promote.
  9. President Elect’s Report – Amber Barberreported that the new Poverty Law Fellow, Jay Diaz, will be working with low-income children in Vermont as his focus. She also noted attending the BLI conference in Chicago last week with Bob and David Fenster, and there were many seminars on public speaking and how to handle interviews, etc. Amber noted that it was a great training opportunity.
  10. Executive Director’s Report – Bob Paolinireported that the new Poverty Law Fellow, James (Jay) Diaz, will be here tonight and tomorrow. All candidates for the position have done some really interesting things. Jay is doing an externship in Rhode Island. Bob stated that Jay really connects with clients, but feels that he will be able to address the policy issues as well. Bob reiterated that Jay’s focus will be on childhood poverty and trying to break that cycle.
    Bob also noted that the Access to Justice fundraising campaign is wrapping up and they had raised around $100,000 as of yesterday. The goal was $125,000. Tomorrow evening representatives from the five biggest donors to Access to Justice along with Jay Diaz will go out to dinner.
    Section chairs were emailed on March 8th regarding Senator Illuzzi’s request for input on the needs of the judiciary. Bob stated he has received approximately a dozen responses, most from the Family Law Section regarding guardians ad litem.
    Bob also noted the judicial retention vote will happen next week. Barry Peterson is the new magistrate, taking the place of Marty Maley, and therefore will go through retention at the same time he is confirmed.
    Bob noted that he met with Fritz Langrock, Rich Cassidy and Chief Justice Reiber for lunch last week to discuss issues before the ABA House of Delegates. Chief Justice Reiber would like to be invited to Board meetings with Rich Cassidy to hear about upcoming issues prior to ABA meetings.
    Bob also noted that an email was sent to selected individuals from Susan Rockwell blasting one of the candidates in tomorrow’s election. Some discussion ensued.
    Bob stated that the ABA Model Rules for Fee Arbitration have been revised and he will be contacting Catherine Clark to get feedback from her.
    H.600 is in the Senate. The first page contains wording for Foreclosure Mediator selection. There will be a Foreclosure Mediation Progress Study Committee and the VBA can appoint two members to that committee.
    H763 includes a mandate that the Department of Education collect education property tax. It came out of committee with a 6-5 vote. Section 3 (page 4) states a request for input, and if it goes through, Bob will put the request out to the Property Law Section for input. The title search section is a necessity to be enacted this year.
    S.179 – Amending Conservation Easements. There are 12 people to be on the committee and the VBA can appoint one of those people. This could be acted on next week.
    Regarding Billings vs Billings, Bob received an email from John Secrest. Bob agreed to talk to the Board about reaching out to form a taskforce. Amber Barber stated that this merits getting the sections together to discuss further.
    Other bills of note on the calendar: S.137 - Unemployment Compensation bill includes workplace bullying; S.138 – Non-violent misdemeanor sentence review committee focuses on victims and Bob may ask the Board to weigh in if they go through.
    Energy Audit Disclosure
    Memo to Susan Bartlett requesting $325K to the Vermont Bar Foundation
    Permit Reform – Bob noted that this bill did not come out of committee. Amber Barber asked about the Child Support bill currently in the Senate.
  11. Staff Reports – Kevin Ryan stated that attendance for the Mid-Year Meeting is pretty good. Some expenses have gone up, but we should still come out ahead. The Intellectual Property tracks are very popular with over 60 signed up for each. Upcoming programs include the Road Show, Succession Planning and Multidisciplinary Collaborative Training. The later was almost cancelled because we didn’t get enough paid registrants by the deadline set by the speakers. The speakers extended the deadline a week, so we are still hopeful that the program will go on as planned.
  12. Section Liaison Reports – Nothing to report
  13. VBF Report –Teri Corsones stated they had a teleconference on Monday and that they are in the middle of the grant application process. Decisions will be made in May.
  1. Emerging Issues–Nothing to report.
  2. Action
  3. Enrollments - A motion was made to accept the following persons as members of the Vermont Bar Association: Attorney Members: Jeffrey T. Dickson, Joyce Samet; Associate Members: Geoffrey J. Ginos, Ashley Jane Romeo, Matthew M. Shagam, Michelle Lynn Sherer.The motion passed unanimously.
  4. Discussion
  1. Retreat Planning – See Board Committee Reports, Program & Planning (C.iii) above.
  1. Unfinished Business – No unfinished business was discussed.
  2. New Business – No new business was discussed.

There being no further Old or New Business, it was moved, seconded, and passed that the meeting adjourn. The meeting adjourned at 1:40 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Laura Welcome
Vermont Bar Association