DURING THE NHBA 2004 Annual Meeting, Katherine Stearns, a general practitioner in New London, will be presented with the Vickie M. Bunnell Award for Community Service on Friday, June 25 (not on Saturday night as previously reported in Bar News.) On Saturday night, Michael W. Holmes of Londonderry will receive the NHBA President’s Award for Distinguished Service to the Public. He is a retired consumer advocate for the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission.

Stearns and Holmes reflect two sides of the multi-faceted nature of attorneys’ involvement in public service.

Katherine Stearns, a mainstay of the NH Pro Bono program who is active in many local organizations in the New London area, is the Vickie Bunnell Community Service Award winner for 2004.

An attorney in private practice since 1994, Stearns has contributed an enormous number of hours to representing clients on a pro bono basis, primarily through the Bar’s Pro Bono Referral program and the DOVE Project. And she exemplifies the model of the attorney as a leading public citizen through her immersion in many community activities, including service as chair of the Zoning Board of Adjustment for New London, as a board member of the District Court Coordinating Council on Domestic Violence, as a religious education teacher, Girl Scout leader, and other activities. She is also a long-time member of the NH Bar’s Pro Bono Governing Board, and is a multiple winner of the Merrimack County Pro Bono Attorney of the Year award.

The Bunnell award is presented to a solo or small-firm attorney who possesses the spirit of community involvement exemplified by Vickie M. Bunnell, the North Country attorney and part-time judge who died in a tragic Colebrook shooting spree in 1997.

While Stearns is a visible figure on Main Street in her hometown, for 20 years Holmes was more of a behind-the-scenes advocate, working in the dynamic and complex world of utilities law during two decades of tumult that included the PSNH bankruptcy, and the move toward deregulation in power generation as well as in telecommunications. Holmes moved to New Hampshire in 1981 and began working as a hearing examiner at the PUC. Two years later, Gov. Hugh Gallen appointed him as consumer advocate. The consumer advocate works out of the Public Utilities Commission offices but is a statutorily independent office whose mission is to advocate for the interests of residential customers of the regulated utilities.

Holmes, 63, retired in Nov. 1, 2003 and is keeping his options open as to what he will do next —although he doubts he will be involved in a litigation-dominated position. He candidly admits he became burned out by the highly politicized, large-stakes pressures of the job. "There isn’t as much support as you’d like for this kind of work," he said. "When you are in private practice, there is an individual client who you can help. When you do something for the general public, you generally don’t get the same feedback when you win a case."

PUC Commissioner Susan Geiger said Holmes was an effective and passionate advocate for the state’s ratepayers during a period of unprecedented change in utilities law.

In addition to the presentation of Holmes’ award on Saturday evening, NHBA President Russell Hilliard will present the Grimes Award for Judicial Professionalism to Probate Court Administrative Judge John R. Maher; the Donald Dufresne Professionalism Award to Cathy J. Green; and the Distinguished Service to the Profession Award to Edward Adamsky (see page 17, June 4, 2004 Bar News for profiles on these three award recipients or the Annual Meeting report at www.nhbar.org).

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