THE NH BAR Foundation’s IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts) Grants Committee is responsible for awarding over $1 million annually in support of important legal access programs and to assist law-related education projects. The IOLTA program provides funding from the interest earned by pooling small or short-term deposits in participating lawyers’ trust accounts.

There are two nominees for one vacancy on the IOLTA Grants Committee for a five-year term.

Incumbent Claudia Damon, an attorney with McLane, Graf, Raulerson & Middleton, Concord, has served on the Grants Committee since 1998, including serving as chair since 2001. A graduate of Boston University Law School, Damon was admitted to the NH Bar in 1974.

Damon was previously an associate, shareholder and member of the management committee at Sheehan Phinney Bass + Green, Manchester.

Her professional activities include having served as a NH Superior Court Rule 170 mediator since its inception, and as a private mediator/arbitrator since 1995. She was a member of the NH Board of Bar Examiners from 1980-89 and of the NH Legal Assistance Board of Directors from 1990-98, including serving as the board’s secretary for two years. She was the 1997 recipient of the Manchester Bar Association’s Lawyer of the Year award.

Damon has also been involved in a number of civic and community groups, including the Concord Board of Education, the board of the Manchester YMCA and the Concord Hospital Board of Corporators.

George C. Bruno is a solo practitioner in Manchester and a NH Superior Court mediator. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Bruno’s first job after law school was as an anti-poverty lawyer with Newark (NJ) Legal Services Project in 1967. In 1971, he was named executive director of NH Legal Assistance. He was appointed assistant director of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys for the U.S. Dept. of Justice in 1977. He later founded a law publishing company, and in 1980, he opened his own law firm, which he managed until being named U.S. ambassador to Belize in 1994 by then-President Bill Clinton, a position in which he served until 1998.

Bruno’s professional and civic activities include serving as the first chair of the NH Appellate Board; as president of the Friends of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and of the NH Social Welfare Council; and as a founder of the Downtown Manchester Business Council. He has also been active politically as a member of the Democratic Party, serving in various capacities on both a state and national level.

Bruno has traveled around the world as a diplomat and recently started an international consulting business. He is co-author of the book "Democracy, Human Rights and the Rule of Law," published in 2000.

Ballots for the IOLTA Grants Committee election will be mailed to all IOLTA participants on July 23 and are due back to the NH Bar Foundation by August 8 at 5:00 p.m. Any attorney who participates in the IOLTA program but does not receive a ballot should contact Mary White at the Bar Foundation, (603) 224-6942 or mwhite@nhbar.org.

The following are Damon’s and Bruno’s candidate statements.

I am running for a second term on the IOLTA Grants Committee because I bring continuity and knowledge of the areas in which the Committee makes grants. This is important for the stability and predictability of funding provided to the organizations that depend on IOLTA grants for much of their financial support.

Eighty-six percent of New Hampshire attorneys participate in the IOLTA program. By far the largest amount of funding provided by the IOLTA Grants Committee goes to organizations that help the disadvantaged gain access to the justice system. We also award grants for law-related public education and for innovation in the administration of justice. Each year, we have more applicants than we can give awards to, which makes the Committee’s work difficult; the decisions can be painful.

IOLTA grants should continue to further legal assistance to low-income persons who would not otherwise have equal access to justice. As long as funds are insufficient to meet all the needs of grant applicants, this undertaking must be given priority by the IOLTA Grants Committee. Priority should be given to funding organizations that reach the most people and handle the greatest variety of problems across a broad range of legal issues. In other words, the IOLTA Grants Committee should seek the biggest bang for the buck. At the same time, it is important to fund education initiatives that teach school children about the legal system and the principles of our state and federal constitutions on which our government is built. As lawyers, we can enhance this learning experience for the children we are able to reach.

To best fulfill the task of the IOLTA Grants Committee, we need to have 100 percent participation in IOLTA among New Hampshire Bar members. While obtaining 100 percent participation is not the job of the IOLTA Grants Committee, I hope sincerely that those attorneys not yet enrolled in the IOLTA program will change that status in the near future. We all have a responsibility to provide for equal access to justice. Working on the IOLTA Grants Committee is one way of securing that. I have enjoyed my first term very much, and I look forward to being able to continue serving on the Committee.

I was delighted several weeks ago when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the validity of IOLTA as a valuable funding source for legal aid and related programs. As a profession, I believe we have an obligation to do all we can to make our system of justice as accessible and affordable as possible to people in need of legal services. IOLTA is but one important and creative program sponsored by our Bar that fulfills that need.

As the first executive director of NH Legal Assistance, one of the founders of the NH Public Defender and a practicing lawyer for over 25 years, I have spent a substantial part of my professional life working to assist the poor, both at home and abroad. It is a commitment about which I feel strongly.

Facilitating its growth; keeping members of the Bar informed; assuring fair decision-making in distributing the funds; maintaining a strong partnership with the banks; promoting good public relations for our profession; and, above all, keeping it simple – including the reporting forms – are all elements of an ongoing, successful IOLTA program, and elements that I will help promote, if elected.

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