by Bob Paolini, Esq.
Interview with Rich Cassidy
December 9, 2013
Bob Paolini: I am at Hoff Curtis in Burlington, meeting with Rich Cassidy. Rich,
most people in the Bar Association know
you. Anybody who comes to VBA meetings
knows that you have been our delegate
to the ABA for some time, but I think we
should still take some time for those who
don’t know you.
Rich Cassidy: Sure.
BP: You’ve been really active with the
VBA as long as I can remember, but we
have never sat down and profiled you in our
Journal. Let’s do that now. I know you are a
Rutland native.
RC: I am a Rutland kid, and I graduated
from Mount Saint Joseph Academy.
BP: Can I assume that this was long before you decided that you wanted to pursue a legal career?
RC: I was interested in being a lawyer, but
I didn’t know if it was feasible.
BP: So where did you go to undergraduate and law school?
RC: I graduated from the University of
Vermont In 1975, and from Albany Law
School in 1978.
BP: Thirty-five years in this business.
RC: So far. I was eager to return to Vermont and I was hired as Bob Larrow’s law
clerk at the Vermont Supreme Court. That
was probably the best way to start practicing in Vermont, because Justice Larrow was
such a bright and interesting character.
BP: One year position?
RC: Yes. Then I clerked for Chief Justice
Barney and ran the clerkship program for
a year.
BP: And then?
RC: I had a job lined up with a law firm
in Hanover, New Hampshire. I gave up my
clerkship, but before I started the firm broke
up. I ended up hunting for a job in late summer to start in September. I can still remember which lawyers saw me when I knocked
on their doors. Many did, and through
them, I found a job with David Drew in Jericho. I started in a two-lawyer general practice law firm.
BP: And when did you join the law firm
that’s now Hoff Curtis?
RC: While at David Drew’s office, I did a
project with Phil Hoff working as counsel to
14
the Supreme Court’s Special Study Committee on Bar Admissions. Phil was at Hoff,
Wilson, Powell and Lang, PC. When the
Study Committee finished work in 1982, he
offered me a job. I admired Phil, and wanted a litigation-oriented practice, so I went.
In 1989, Phil and I left that firm, and with
David Curtis, John Pacht, and Julie Frame,
started Hoff Curtis.
BP: I made some reference in the introduction to your work to the American Bar
Association. Were you always involved with
the ABA?
RC: In the early 80s, I ran for VBA Delegate to the Young Lawyer’s Section against
my friend, Sam Johnson. Sam won, and on
reflection, I am very glad he did. I didn’t
have any active role in the ABA until I was
elected ABA Delegate in 1999.
BP: You’ve been our delegate since then
consistently except for your term on the
Board of Governors, which was a three-year
term?
RC: Actually, I was still a delegate then.
BP: Tell us what those jobs mean.
RC: State bar associations and other entities elect members of the House of Delegates, the governing body of the ABA. A
560-member house, it operates at a broad
policy level. So the ABA has a smaller board
of directors, its Board of Governors, with
thirty-eight members.
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • WINTER 2014
BP: The Board of Governors meets more
often than the House, which meets just
twice a year?
RC: The Board meets four times a year.
BP: At some point, you became involved
in the Uniform Law Commission?
RC: In law school I took the Uniform
Commercial Code and compared the logic
of that statute to case law. I thought that it
made a lot more sense as a way to develop
the law than having judges draw rules from
the worst cases they see. Working from a
thoughtful survey of a subject, and identifying the controlling principles, struck me
then as sensible.
BP: I know it has gone through different
names. We used to call it NCCUSL, now it’s
the Uniform Law Commission, which is easier to remember and say. How is that structured? How does that all work?
RC: The Uniform Law Commission is
still technically the National Conference
of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.
Since 2007, we have used the name “Uniform Law Commission.” Sometimes we just
call it the “Conference” or the “ULC.”
BP: How did it come to exist?
RC: It was a child of the American Bar Association.
BP: Did the ABA control i