EACH YEAR, THE New Hampshire Bar Association recognizes those among its members who have achieved the milestone of a half-decade of service as members of the legal profession, regardless of where they were first admitted to practice.

According to bar records, there are 14 surviving admittees of whom eight were first admitted in New Hampshire. Brief profiles and interviews with the 14 will appear in this and subsequent issues of Bar News, and the honorees—who are granted honorary Bar member status – will be recognized at the NHBA Annual Meeting Banquet on Friday, June 21.

Lawrence H. Miller, who retired from the Colebrook District Court bench in 1994 after about 10 years as presiding judge, landed in the North Country after a legal career in Boston and several stints in the Air Force and Air Force Reserve; he never really practiced law in New Hampshire, however.

A Massachusetts native, he served in the Army Air Force as a gunner and radio operator on B-17s and B-29s until his dis charge. He went to college and obtained a law degree from Boston University Law School, and was first admitted to practice in Massachusetts in 1952. He practiced in Boston and Cambridge and served in the Air Force Reserve, including the Judge Advocate General Corps based at Hanscom Field; he saw active service in the Korean Conflict and during the Korean Missile Crisis.

At one point, Miller found himself sounding off to Air Force legal officers about their neglect of military law training for JAGs in the reserve. "I told them what I thought of the whole mess, and it turns out they were listening."

The secretary of the Air Force’s office called and, his first wife having recently died, Miller accepted an offer to work in Washington in the early 1970s. He accepted a position as special assistant to the Judge Advocate General of the Air Force and helped the Air Force develop training and "refresher courses" for JAG officers. "I only expected to stay four years there, but it was a fun job, it was a ‘movie star’ job – part public relations, part training. I was working with young people and that keeps you young. I traveled around the country and served under three secretaries of the Air Force."

Miller also met his second wife, Sharon, who was then working in Washington. When she got a job in community mental health in northern New Hampshire, he left the Air Force and went along. As it happened, an opening had developed on the Colebrook District Court bench, to which he was eventually appointed as presiding judge.

"That was an interesting job," he said. "I was able to relate to the people who came before me. A lot of the kids I saw in court were like some of the tough young fellows I grew up with in Boston. I enjoyed the work, but when my mandatory retirement came up, I was glad to give it up."

Miller said he was also glad to give up his position as chair of the State Employee Appeals Board, which necessitated regular trips to Concord for long days of hearings.

Today, Miller, now 78, enjoys the North Country life and talks excitedly about playing guitar in a band that plays "old-time" country music at nursing homes and other venues.

Wesley E. Whitney’s legal career in the General Electric corporate legal department took him around the country and overseas, but his fondest memories are of the lessons in lawyering he learned from his mentors at the McLane, Carleton, Graf, Greene and Brown firm in Manchester, where he started as an associate shortly after passing the NH bar in 1952.

Whitney, speaking from his retirement home in Blue River, Colo., (he boasts he’s at 10,000 feet elevation) recalls a month-long "cram course" on the New Hampshire bar exam he took with Bob Branch, Shane Devine, Bob Raulerson, Dave Hamblett and Jim Sayef. The bar exam itself was a "real sweaty operation" taken in sweltering July heat in the second-floor reading room of the old NH Supreme Court building across from the former federal courthouse (now the Legislative Office Building).

The partners at McLane – John "Judge" McLane Sr., John McLane, Jr., John Carleton, Ken Graf, Arthur Greene, Stan Brown and Harriet Mansfield – were "great mentors," Whitney said.

"What I learned from them were lessons I took with me my entire career."

Whitney moved to the Upton, Sanders & Upton firm in 1955, but in 1961 accepted an offer to join the legal staff of the General Electric Company in New York City. He first started working for the Antitrust Settlement and Litigation operation, defending the company against 1,400 pending lawsuits alleging price-fixing in the electrical equipment marketplace. He served as a liaison between the company and attorneys in Washington, DC, and California. From 1965 to 1991, he served as legal counsel for GE in offices and facilities primarily in the Northeast, but also including London, England, for a period.

After living the life of a corporate gypsy, Whitney took up residence in Andover, Mass. from 1969 to 1993, where he became active in town affairs. He became a fixture on the Andover Zoning Board of Appeals, on which he served from 1975 to 1991.

Today, Whitney, 78, and Lois-Ann, his wife of 54 years, enjoy an outdoors-oriented retirement, including skiing, camping, hiking and cycling, and some traveling. They have two children, a son, James, in Alaska, and a daughter, Carole, who lives in Colorado.

Joseph S. Ransmeier, who will soon celebrate his 87th birthday (on June 19), is the oldest of the 50-year members being honored this year. Still on active status, Ransmeier continues to handle a modest amount of trust and estate work, though on an "of counsel" basis, for the law firm he helped found, Ransmeier & Spellman.

Ironically, Ransmeier points out that his office in a former bank building on the corner of Main and Capitol, lies less than 25 feet from the first office he occupied as an associate 50 years ago when the space was occupied by the Sulloway, Hollis, Jones, Godfrey & Soden law firm, which has since relocated to office space next door. He jokes that he "hasn’t gone far."

Ransmeier came to the law later in life, after a brief career teaching economics (he obtained a doctorate in economics from Vanderbilt University). During World War II, he enlisted in the Army and served for 39 months; his accounting and statistical expertise was used for planning and analysis for the supply corps in the war effort. He later served in an economic analysis position for the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Ransmeier came to New Hampshire to teach at Dartmouth College after the war and found he was growing increasingly interested in the convergence of law and economics. He pursued a law degree in a summer program at the University of Michigan, "not intending to do anything except teach," but then was drawn into practicing law.

His economic background led him to utility law at the Sulloway firm, working with Franklin Hollis mere steps away from where he sits now – only in those days, the office was filled with the sounds of clacking typewriters rather than the hum of today’s quieter office machines.

Ransmeier remained with Sulloway & Hollis, principally working with Concord Electric and other utility clients and doing trust and estate work, until 1979, when he formed Ransmeier & Spellman, partnering with his son John Ransmeier, Lawrence Smith and the late Lawrence Spellman. The firm now has grown to 21 lawyers, including Lisa Biklen, his former legal assistant who was admitted to the Bar in 1988.

A longtime resident of Hopkinton, Ransmeier has served on the town’s School Board and Board of Selectman, and has worked on developing a zoning ordinance for the Hopkinton Village District.

He confesses that some of the modern trends in the law are frustrating—especially the diminishing loyalty between clients and lawyers, and the increased focus on the bottom line. But he’d rather dwell on the satisfactions.

"Practicing law can be extremely satisfying – especially when you work with someone, or a couple or a family, and help them carry out their plans through their lifetime," he said. "As a trust attorney, you help carry forward their unfinished work."

Despite his educational credentials, Ransmeier said success as a lawyer has more to do with people skills than technical knowledge. "Most problems you encounter as a lawyer are human problems," he said. "You have to be able to deal with the people. All the technical knowledge you have doesn’t do you any good if you don’t like to work with people."

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