Experienced group of admittees sees NH practice as a challenge - but a worthy one.

FIFTY-EIGHT NEW members of the New Hampshire Bar were admitted to practice in New Hampshire at a special session of the New Hampshire Supreme Court on May 29.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Linda S. Dalianis' remarks to the group included an extended quotation from the passage of J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" that gave the book its name. Dalianis urged the lawyers to emulate Holden Caufield and seek satisfaction through service, rather than through the monetary rewards and perks of the profession. "We need more lawyers who will be catchers in the rye," she said.

Of the 58 new admittees, 21 are located out of state, including 13 lawyers in private practice in Massachusetts and two each in Portland, Maine, and Vermont. Sixteen attorneys indicated they will be establishing a solo practice in New Hampshire or are seeking employment, and nine are employed by existing law firms. Four new admittees have corporate legal positions, three of them in New Hampshire. Eleven attorneys are in public-sector positions, including the new chief appellate defender for New Hampshire, Christopher Johnson; two public defenders; two working for the Attorney General's office; and three law clerks.

Continuing the gender diversification of the Bar, half of the new admittees were women. Currently, slightly more than 30 percent of the Bar's membership is female.

This class of new admittees was a select group - only 55.9 percent of the 118 applicants who took the Bar exam last February passed, a much lower pass rate than the last two exams: 63.3 percent passed in July 2001 and 69.5 percent in February 2001.

The May 2002 admittees come to the NH Bar from some unconventional directions. John Currie is a 59-year-old gynecologic oncology surgeon who attended Vermont Law School while in full-time practice at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Cindy Gallagher is a psychology professor at New England College. In addition to teaching, she reports that she is part of a research team that is working with public schools in New England on remedying bullying environments. Michael U. Laska, in practice in Norwich, Vermont, is a former wildlife biologist from Canada. Matthew C. Allen, who joined a Manchester law firm, is a former social worker.

In an exchange of e-mails with Bar News, some of the new admittees offered insight into what it took to become a NH Bar member, why they did it, and what their initial impressions of the Bar are.

These May admittees are typically older than the new admittees fresh out of law school who predominate at the summer exam and are sworn-in in October. Many of the May admittees have established careers and families, and law school and their last Bar exam are distant memories.

Several of the new admittees said they maintained routines of studying intensively for several hours a day for weeks or months, sealing themselves off in basement offices or staying at the office to minimize distractions. "I worked full-time and have an infant son, so studying often took second place to other priorities," wrote Cindy Gallagher, of Newport, NH.

"In the middle of January, I started taking multiple-choice tests on weekends and listening to tapes while I commuted. In the beginning of February, I switched to the NH essays, focusing on the topics for which I did not have class experience. I continued doing issue-spotting and note-taking on the essay topics for two weeks, then I went back to the multistate stuff during the third week of February. I put it all away one week before the exam," said Gallagher.

After detailing her own preparations, Patricia French, of the Boston law firm of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & McRae, added, "Like the way I practice law, I don't take chances."

William B. Smith, who currently works as a staff attorney for the Connecticut Elections Enforcement Commission, said he used commercial bar review course materials, but took to heart a New Hampshire attorney's advice: "He said that what New Hampshire [bar examiners] want to see most is that you 'think like a lawyer.' He also said that reading the 'call of the question' was critical. I took his advice to heart, and I think it helped."

Some of the new admittees, by working in New Hampshire or studying for the NH Bar exam, have already formed opinions about the nature of legal practice in the Granite State.

"The biggest difference I've noticed is that there's more reliance on common law practice, as compared to rule-based practice," noted Christopher Pyles, of Wiggin & Nourie in Manchester.

Patricia French, who has concentrated on energy and telecommunications law in New England for the past 12 years and is admitted in three other states, takes the idea of multi-jurisdictional practice very seriously. "There are substantial differences in the laws of each state and you must face a bar exam in order to fully understand those differences," she wrote. "I shudder to think of some general practitioners who waive in as a matter of course in other states. You really have to want to practice law in NH in order to face that exam, and it makes you think of the differences in court structure, civil practice, appellate practice and criminal practice, even if you don't face those issues every day."

Another admittee, who was previously admitted in Massachusetts and has been working in a New Hampshire legal office for the past few months, added: "There seems to be much less case law on any given topic, which can make the practice of law more challenging, as the answer to a legal question sometimes (often?) has not yet been decided in New Hampshire. I think the size of the bar in Massachusetts has led that state to take greater steps to make the practice of law uniform, for example by implementing more detailed rules of procedure than NH seems to have."

But there was universal applause for the first impression provided by the NH Bar swearing-in ceremony and the reception in the justices' conference room.

"There was a very welcoming feeling from the court and from the NH Bar Association," wrote Maureen E. Lane, of Melick, Porter & Shea, in Boston.

"I especially liked that the Supreme Court justices themselves were present during the ceremony. It was a tribute to the collegiality of the NH Bar that they were present at the reception," wrote another attorney.

"The swearing-in was great. I especially enjoyed the reading from 'Catcher in the Rye,'" wrote Michael Laska. "It was about the right length - short but sweet."

Matthew Allen, who has joined the Nelson, Kinder, Mosseau & Saturley law firm in Manchester, summed up why he came to New Hampshire to practice law: "The Bar here is relatively small and I wanted to practice somewhere where reputation and ability mean a lot."

NEW ADMITTEES SWORN IN ON MAY 29, 2002

Listed with office location

Home | About the Bar | For Members | For the Public | Legal Links | Publications | Online Store
Lawyer Referral Service | Law-Related Education | NHBA•CLE | NHBA Insurance Agency | NHMCLE
Search | Calendar

New Hampshire Bar Association
2 Pillsbury Street, Suite 300, Concord NH 03301
phone: (603) 224-6942 fax: (603) 224-2910
email: NHBAinfo@nhbar.org
© NH Bar Association Disclaimer