Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Spring 2016, Volume 42, No. 1 | Page 19

by Therese M. Corsones, Esq.

Interview with Bob Paolini
April 13, 2016

Teri Corsones: Today is Wednesday,
April 13th, and I’m here at the VBA with
Bob Paolini. Bob is the VBA Executive Director, and he’ll be retiring from that position at the end of May.
Hi Bob. Kevin and I just happened to be
wading through old archives of Vermont
Bar Journals, and we came across this interesting issue. I don’t know if you recognize it?
Bob Paolini: No, I don’t.
TC: It’s the April 1996 edition. Peter Hall

was president and there’s an especially
good looking, earnest young man pictured
on page 7. He’s the author of the “Exec’s
Desk” column. I think he might look familiar to you.
BP: I really don’t remember him ...
TC: Ok, we’ll get to the column a little
bit later. Bob, you started the tradition of
interviewing incoming VBA presidents, I’m
going to say in 1999.
BP: Yes, Jon Eggleston was the first person I interviewed, and I have done it every
www.vtbar.org

year since, including you.
TC: I remember.
BP: When? 2009?
TC: Oh gosh, I’m going to embarrass myself by not knowing the exact date. 2010?
BP: 2010.
TC: Yes. I don’t know if you’ve ever
been interviewed for the Journal yourself
though.
BP: I haven’t, and I have been very lucky

to have not been. But I can see that my luck
is starting to run out.
TC: Your luck ends as of today. I think it’s
about time that our readers get to learn a
little bit about you, our longtime leader. I
wanted to start the way you always start,
asking where you’re from, where you grew
up, where you went to school ... basically
everything that’s fit to print up until April
1996.
BP: I am from Brooklyn, New York, went
to college in New York City, and went to
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • SPRING 2016

law school at Villanova University.
TC: Hey, congratulations on the basketball championship!
BP: Right! I moved to Vermont and took
and passed the bar in 1973. My first position was actually here in Montpelier at the
Washington County State’s Attorney’s Office.
TC: What led you to Ve