EACH YEAR, THE Bar recognizes those members who have reached the milestone of 50 years in the practice of law. This year, 23 members achieved honorary status and were officially honored at the just-completed Annual Meeting. (See photos in the next issue of Bar News.) The Bar News is continuing its series of brief sketches of this year’s honorary members. More profiles will appear in subsequent issues.

Paul A. Rinden, admitted to the NH Bar in 1952 after graduating from Yale University and the Columbia University School of Law, has been in practice in Concord for his entire career. He maintains a full-time trial law practice, handling primarily commercial collections and personal injury matters. His career included service in the public sector as Merrimack County attorney, and as an assistant U.S. attorney under the late Maurice Bois.

A lifelong Republican, he served one term in the NH Senate. The highlight of his legislative career was sponsoring SB 1, which provided the largest pay raise in the state’s history for state workers, who, he believed, had salaries that lagged significantly behind those of their private-sector counterparts.

A longtime member of the Kiwanis Club in Concord, Rinden said he started the Kiwanis Club Fair, which continues today and is the organization’s largest fundraiser. He has three children, Daniel, Betsy and Emily.

Joseph S. Tangusso today practices in Boston with his son, Joseph, in the law firm started by his father, Sebastian, in 1913, and he said he has three cousins who also are attorneys. Tangusso, a genial man who laughs easily, spent much of his career in Boston, but did practice in Gilford for about 10 years and recalls several fellow members of the 2003 honorary group of Bar members. Several were his classmates at Boston University Law School, including Ralph Stein, retired Supreme Court Justice William Batchelder, and his Lakes Region colleague Richard Brouillard.

Tangusso, along with a number of other graduates that year, was allowed to take the Bar exam before finishing law school in order to enter the Army. He served in the Korean War in the 82nd Airborne Division, and also served as a military lawyer.

He remains in full-time practice in domestic relations and probate, and last April won an appeal in a family law case at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. "At my age, that’s a nice feeling," said the 73-year-old Tangusso.

"I derive a great deal of satisfaction from the practice of law," he said. "My father reached his 50 years as an attorney, and I am glad I am able to do the same."

Tangusso is married to wife Patricia. He has five children and four stepchildren.

Also still in practice is 81-year-old James A. Sayer, Jr., of Salem, who has practiced in Salem for 50 years. Sayer, who served in the Air Force in World War II and served as a B-29 flight instructor, went to law school after military service. He is well known in the community, having served as a charter member and on the board of the Salem Boys & Girls Club for 30 years, as a town moderator and as a special justice of the Salem Municipal Court from 1954 to 1974. He also represented Salem in the NH House of Representatives for 10 years. He and his wife, Sandra, have two sons, James B. and Andrew L. Sayer.

Sayer’s reaction to reaching the milestone of 50 years in the practice of law: "Thank the Lord I was allowed to live this long."

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