An Interview With Vba President Jim Gallagher
| Publication year | 2005 |
| Citation | Vol. 2005 No. 12 |
December 2005 - #8. AN INTERVIEW WITH VBA PRESIDENT JIM GALLAGHER
BP: Jim, let's introduce you to members of the VBA who may not know you. You have just become president of the VBA and I like to use these interviews as an opportunity to all of our members to get to know their new president. Why don't we start with you giving a little background about yourself.
JG: Sure. I started with Downs & Rachlin in 1971. Bob Rachlin used to say, tongue-in-cheek, I was the token native. I was born in Lyndonville, went to high school at Lyndon Institute and on to college and law school. I came back to Vermont and started with Downs & Rachlin, the predecessor to Downs Rachlin Martin, and have spent my career with this firm. I have always practiced out of the St. Johnsbury office, the only office when I started. As you know, over the years we have added several other offices in Vermont and New Hampshire.
BP: Downs Rachlin Martin is the state's biggest law firm. Were there any large firms in the early seventies?
JG: Well the largest Vermont law firm in the early seventies was probably Ryan, Smith Carbine in Rutland. I think Wick Dinse Allen, the predecessor to Dinse, Knapp McAndrew, was one of the larger firms in Burlington. When I arrived at Downs & Rachlin, I was the fourth lawyer behind John Downs, Bob Rachlin, and Allen Martin. We have grown to five offices and fifty-seven lawyers at last count.
BP: Has anybody else in the firm spent their entire legal career with DRM?
JG: John Downs and Bob Rachlin both did. Allen Martin started in Boston with Foley, Hoag and Elliott. Jake Wheeler and John Marshall have spent their entire careers with the firm. Actually, the full list of "lifers" would be pretty long.
BP: That is an interesting phenomenon given what we see with people moving around these days.
JG: DRM has a good number of lawyers who have never practiced elsewhere. It also has a pretty big alumni association, many of whom spent years with us before they left for other ventures.
BP: How has your practice evolved over the years?
JG: I just do litigation now. I wouldn't want ALPS to think I do a general practice these days, but I did when I started. In the 1970s I did a little bit of everything: title work, basic wills, corporate work and I think I may have formed one of the first captive insurance companies in the state. I also did a little criminal law. In those days there was no public defender system. Vermont had an assigned counsel system where the court appointed counsel for indigent defendants, at a rate of $15 an hour. These appointments seemed to find the younger lawyers, so I got my share. So in the early days I did just about everything. At the time, half our work was insurance defense and before long I started doing a lot of that. Over the years, our litigation practice has evolved quite a bit. While I still do some insurance defense work, much is for self-insured clients or commercial cases that are not typically insured.
BP: The firm has moved into the family law area recently.
JG: We have. Way back all of us did a little family practice, but after the family court system started none of us continued to do so. This left a gap in our practice. When existing clients became involved in family law issues we would refer them out. Recently, we had a chance to affiliate with the Schoenberg Group and it seemed a natural fit. So far it has worked very well. We are able to provide the family law piece for clients needing those services and the rest of the firm is able to provide clients of the Family Law Group with our other array of services.
BP: Has your practice taken you throughout the state?
JG: Yes it has. When I started, our only office was in St. Johnsbury and we represented several insurance companies and other clients throughout the state. There was a time I had either tried a case or handled a motion in every one of the county courthouses in the state. With new courthouses added in recent years I no longer can say I've done that, but earlier in my career I could.
BP: Two questions that I wanted to ask. If memory serves me, you started practice about three years before the state changed the way judges are selected. I believe it was in 1974 that we switched to the judicial nominating board process as opposed to judicial election by the Legislature.
JG: Yes, I remember that.
BP: So you've seen not only the bar evolve, but you've also seen the judiciary evolve. I'd like to take a couple of minutes to talk about changes you've seen in the bar.
JG: Shortly after I started practicing, the Caledonia County Bar Association held a dinner to honor three lawyers in St. Johnsbury, each of whom had practiced more than sixty years: Arthur Graves, Harry Witters, and Sam Richardson. They had 180 plus years of practice behind...
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