by Bob Paolini, Esq.


Interview with Rich Cassidy December 9, 2013


Bob Paolini: I am at Hoff Curtis in Bur- lington, meeting with Rich Cassidy. Rich, most people in the Bar Association know you. Anybody who comes to VBA meetings knows that you have been our delegate to the ABA for some time, but I think we should still take some time for those who don’t know you. Rich Cassidy: Sure.


BP: You’ve been really active with the VBA as long as I can remember, but we have never sat down and profiled you in our Journal. Let’s do that now. I know you are a Rutland native. RC: I am a Rutland kid, and I graduated


from Mount Saint Joseph Academy. BP: Can I assume that this was long be-


fore you decided that you wanted to pur- sue a legal career? RC: I was interested in being a lawyer, but I didn’t know if it was feasible.


BP: So where did you go to undergradu- ate and law school? RC: I graduated from the University of


Vermont In 1975, and from Albany Law School in 1978.


BP: Thirty-five years in this business. RC: So far. I was eager to return to Ver- mont and I was hired as Bob Larrow’s law clerk at the Vermont Supreme Court. That was probably the best way to start practic- ing in Vermont, because Justice Larrow was such a bright and interesting character.


BP: One year position? RC: Yes. Then I clerked for Chief Justice


Barney and ran the clerkship program for a year.


BP: And then? RC: I had a job lined up with a law firm in Hanover, New Hampshire. I gave up my clerkship, but before I started the firm broke up. I ended up hunting for a job in late sum- mer to start in September. I can still remem- ber which lawyers saw me when I knocked on their doors. Many did, and through them, I found a job with David Drew in Jeri- cho. I started in a two-lawyer general prac- tice law firm.


BP: And when did you join the law firm


that’s now Hoff Curtis? RC: While at David Drew’s office, I did a project with Phil Hoff working as counsel to


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the Supreme Court’s Special Study Com- mittee on Bar Admissions. Phil was at Hoff, Wilson, Powell and Lang, PC. When the Study Committee finished work in 1982, he offered me a job. I admired Phil, and want- ed a litigation-oriented practice, so I went. In 1989, Phil and I left that firm, and with David Curtis, John Pacht, and Julie Frame, started Hoff Curtis.


BP: I made some reference in the intro- duction to your work to the American Bar Association. Were you always involved with the ABA? RC: In the early 80s, I ran for VBA Dele- gate to the Young Lawyer’s Section against my friend, Sam Johnson. Sam won, and on reflection, I am very glad he did. I didn’t have any active role in the ABA until I was elected ABA Delegate in 1999.


BP: You’ve been our delegate since then consistently except for your term on the Board of Governors, which was a three-year term? RC: Actually, I was still a delegate then.


BP: Tell us what those jobs mean. RC: State bar associations and other en- tities elect members of the House of Del- egates, the governing body of the ABA. A 560-member house, it operates at a broad policy level. So the ABA has a smaller board of directors, its Board of Governors, with thirty-eight members.


THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • WINTER 2014


BP: The Board of Governors meets more often than the House, which meets just twice a year? RC: The Board meets four times a year.


BP: At some point, you became involved in the Uniform Law Commission? RC: In law school I took the Uniform Commercial Code and compared the logic of that statute to case law. I thought that it made a lot more sense as a way to develop the law than having judges draw rules from the worst cases they see. Working from a thoughtful survey of a subject, and identi- fying the controlling principles, struck me then as sensible.


BP: I know it has gone through different names. We used to call it NCCUSL, now it’s the Uniform Law Commission, which is eas- ier to remember and say. How is that struc- tured? How does that all work? RC: The Uniform Law Commission is still technically the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. Since 2007, we have used the name “Uni- form Law Commission.” Sometimes we just call it the “Conference” or the “ULC.”


BP: How did it come to exist? RC: It was a child of the American Bar As- sociation.


BP: Did the ABA control it? Did the ABA put its people on its first version of that commission?


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