defense, and the criminal divisions in the courts. Are we getting enough time, are cases delayed because of lack of resourc- es?


DF: I can only speak for Addison County in terms of delay. The criminal justice sys- tem requires funding. I don’t think that we have seen an increase in positions on the state’s attorneys side for some years. State- wide, both sides, defense and prosecutors, had for some period of time been frozen at their salaries. Only now are they beginning to see increases in their salaries. It makes it difficult to attract talented lawyers, both on the prosecution side and on the defense side, when you have that kind of stagnation in terms of salaries. I cannot speak to the defense side in terms of positions; I don’t know if there has been any increase in the numbers. I do know that Addison County just got a second full-time public defend- er. I know that there is a lot of court time involved in these cases, and there is a lot of time needed by the judges in these cas- es, and you could always use some more resources. This is especially true in juvenile court, where you only have a half day one week and a full day the next week dealing with juveniles, families, and a lot of com- plicated issues. We could always use more judge time and more judicial resources.


BP: Let me change the subject a little bit.


Let’s talk a little bit more about the VBA. You have been on the board now for five years? DF: That sounds about right.


BP: When you first started, you were still in Bennington. DF: I was. I was in private practice in Ben- nington.


BP: Why did you run for the board? Why


did you want to be on the Board of Man- agers? DF: I think that has to do with the same


reason that I eventually wanted to go back to being state’s attorney. I like to partici- pate. I like to help. I come from a family of lawyers. I have always enjoyed being a lawyer and working with lawyers. And once I left the state’s attorney’s office, I wanted to find a way to contribute to the broad- er community of lawyers and legal profes- sion, and I saw this opportunity as a way to do that.


BP: You are one of the few people that made the effort to serve from Bennington. We know how difficult that is, because I re- member you commuting here for a board meeting, which really took the entire day. DF: It did, I always budgeted six hours


travel time—three hours up, three hours back. The board meets at one, so it was pretty much the whole day when I came


www.vtbar.org


up. It was significant effort to get here from Bennington, that is for sure, but it was worth it. It’s a great organization, it’s a great board, and it’s a great opportunity to serve both the legal profession and the le- gal system in general.


BP: Now you are about to lead that


board. What do you see as challenges and opportunities for the VBA in the next year with you as its president? DF: One of the challenges that I see— and that we have talked about as a board before so this is not a novel concept of mine—is the change in the legal profes- sion. Changes in terms of what clients are asking of lawyers, what clients are will- ing to pay lawyers to do, the financial as- pects of running a law firm, and practical aspects of running a law firm. The change in the practice of the law. We now compete with the internet. I read an article not long ago about the fact that people can look up legal principles on the internet in a way that they never could when my father and grandfather were starting out. Back then, the market was cornered in terms of legal knowledge because it could only be found in the books themselves. It was difficult to access the information in the books unless you knew where to find the books and the books were not inexpensive. Also, you had to understand legal research. You had to sift through cases to distill legal doctrines. Now there is the internet; you can search a principle and come up with someone who has explained what it means. A lot of people are taking that opportunity to do some legal tasks for themselves. The ques- tion becomes, “How do we as legal prac- titioners move into the future, where’s our niche, what are we going to be doing, what is the future of our practice going to look like?” And then, “What is the future of the association going to look like in terms of servicing and providing services to those members?”


BP: Clearly those are the challenges. The other issue that this board has talked about is the aging of the bar, the graying of the bar, which is not unique to Vermont. Actu- ally it’s pretty true throughout New Eng- land and in many other states. And then there’s the slowing influx of new lawyers, in large part due to massive amounts of stu- dent debt; coming to Vermont and ending up with a low-paying job makes it impos- sible for folks to come here, so it seems like we are facing a challenge on both ends—people leaving the practice and not enough new people entering the practice. Any thoughts about how we address that? DF: That is clearly a challenge. I know as


a board we discuss this a lot, and I know that it’s not an easy issue to tackle. Not only is the bar graying, but I think lawyers


THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • FALL 2013 7


are working longer into their careers. We talk about retirement age, and I don’t even know what that is. What does that age look like now? Lawyers are working longer and longer, some voluntarily, others by finan- cial necessity. So what does “retirement” look like and what services do we provide for those folks? And then what do we do in terms of trying to make sure that there are new lawyers coming into the state to take over when the older lawyers finally do decide to retire. We have a relatively small economy in comparison with NYC or Bos- ton, but students are still coming out with the same debt load, whether they go to Boston or whether they stay here. How are they going to make a financial life here in Vermont given the limitations of our econ- omy? That is going to be the challenge go- ing forward. And I don’t think there is a magic bullet. It would be great if there was one.


BP: If it were August or September 2014, and you were about to hand over the gav- el to your successor, looking back over your twelve months, how would you judge whether your year as president was suc- cessful? DF: That is a good question.


BP: I saved that one until the end. DF: And it’s one for which I have no easy


answer. At a fundamental level, I would like to leave the organization in a sound finan- cial place. I know that is not grandiose, but this is our organization and it has a bud- get, it has to meet its budget, it’s got em- ployees. Certainly one of the things that I would like to do, and it goes without say- ing but I may as well say it, leave the orga- nization in a sound financial place with an idea of how to generate revenue and to do CLEs. It’s great now. It has a sound foun- dation. Build on that. I want to do whatev- er I can to advance the effort, making sure there is a community in Vermont in which people can practice law and can make a liv- ing doing it. I would also like to increase government lawyers’ interest in participa- tion in the organization. Government law- yers don’t join the VBA in large numbers. That will be a problem that we will always have to struggle with, but it would be nice to make sure that the government lawyers see themselves as part of the community of lawyers and not necessarily as a distinct group.


BP: Anything else you want to add at this


point. DF: Not today.


BP: Great, thank you.


President’s Column


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40