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Bar News - November 4, 2005 Stephen Woods Remembered By: Beverly Rorick Stephen Woods Friends and colleagues will sorely miss Attorney Woods. He loved the give-and-take of argument and always described himself as “a trial lawyer.” At Gage and Woods in Exeter, he is remembered by Thomas Gage as “a Renaissance Man [and] a true advocate, a lawyer’s lawyer. The breadth of his knowledge was amazing,” said Gage. Woods, whose full name was Stephen John Colin Woods, was born in Manchester, England. When he was five years old, his family moved to America, settling in Massachusetts. Stephen was a very athletic boy, lettering in three sports while in high school. He attended the University of New Hampshire and then briefly the University of Pennsylvania to study Hellenic religions. Eventually he chose to continue his education at Boston University Law School, from which he graduated. The family moved to Exeter, NH and Woods joined the NH Bar Association in 1977. For 28 years Woods practiced law in the Exeter area, working with many fine lawyers, among them Page Brown, the late Bob Shaw, Rockingham County Attorney Jim Reams, the late Christopher McGuirk, the Honorable Edward Gage, the late Hank Shute, Sharon Rondeau, and most recently Thomas Gage at the law firm of Gage & Woods in Exeter. He also served as Rockingham County Attorney. “I ran against him for Rockingham County Attorney in 1984. I think he represented a lot of what is noble in our profession and I, for one, will miss him,” said colleague Larry Gillis of Rye. In 1982 the Woods family moved to Stratham, NH, a town Stephen loved and where he soon became involved in several community activities. He served as town moderator from 1988-1996 and as a member of the Board of Selectmen from 1996-98. Woods was a communicant of St. Michael Parish in Exeter and coached basketball at St. Patrick’s School in Portsmouth. He also coached mock trial competitions for the Bar Association’s LRE program. Thomas Gage, in a tribute to his colleague sent to Bar News, said, “I knew Stephen Woods for over 20 years and practiced law with him for the past two years. He was one of the most intelligent and passionate people I have ever known…. All I can think is how great it was to have him around and how much I will miss him now that he is gone. “Stephen loved to argue. At lunch he would try to engage the whole office in a selected “topic of discussion” occasionally winding up arguing against himself! He was familiar with almost any topic: the classics, art, music, history, the law, politics and, of course, sailing, which was his avocation. “A few days before he died Steve and I were having an intense discussion about a political point (exactly what, is lost to me now). He just could not get me to budge. Frustrated, he summed up by saying: ‘I just believe in democracy.’ Later that evening I thought how great it was that a man 10 years older than I, who’d spent so much time dealing with ‘the system,’ could maintain such an optimistic outlook. I meant to tell him that when next we talked. Sadly, I never did…but I’m kind of glad he had the last word.” Woods leaves behind his wife Deborah (Kolosky) Woods and his five children: daughter Emily Forgy and her husband Jeff; son Colin and his wife Heather; daughters Margaret and Abigail and son Asher. He is also survived by two grandchildren, Albert Francis Pace III and Clyde Thomas Forgy; two sisters, Jane Dean and Tansy Felker, his brother Alan and several nieces and nephews. A memorial mass was celebrated on Friday, October 28, 2005 at St. Michael Parish in Exeter. In memory of our colleague Stephen Woods, the New Hampshire Bar Association’s Board of Governors has contributed to the New Hampshire Bar Foundation, 112 Pleasant Street, Concord, NH 03301.
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