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 The Best in Your Bar 2010 | At the Honors and Awards Luncheon...
these awards will be presented.
Distinguished Pro Bono Service Awards and Pro Bono Rising Star Awards
Click to view the 2010 Pro Bono Award Winners
Distinguished Service to the Public
Jack Middleton | 
David Nixon | 
Kimon Zachos |
Three giants of the NH legal profession -- Jack Middleton, David Nixon, and Kimon Zachos – will be presented a collective Distinguished Service to the Public Award by NHBA President James J. Tenn, Jr. at the 2010 Midyear Meeting.
Although all three have individually been recognized before by the NH Bar, Tenn decided to present them with an award recognizing their career-long dedication to public service. The idea to recognize the three as a group highlights the force for public good that their enduring and close friendship represents.
Middleton, a senior partner of the McLane, Graf, Raulerson & Middleton firm, Nixon, of the Nixon Raiche Manning & Vogelman firm, and Zachos, of Sheehan Phinney Bass + Green, have been friends for more than 50 years. These three Manchester attorneys, all leaders in their law firms and in many community organizations, get together almost every month for breakfast and, through the years, have collaborated on many professionalism and community leadership initiatives, over ham and eggs.
“Their service is exemplary because of its duration of more than five decades, and the profound influence that service has had on those who have known them,” said Tenn. “Such service is extraordinary and these individuals deserve to be honored.”
Quentin Blaine |
Vickie M. Bunnell Award for Community Service
(Attorney from a firm of 3 lawyers or fewer is eligible)
Quentin Blaine, a solo practitioner with a general civil practice in Plymouth, has been named the 2010 recipient of the Vickie M. Bunnell Award for Community Service by NHBA President James J. Tenn, Jr.
Given to an attorney from a small firm (four or fewer attorneys), the award recognizes dedication to community through an attorney’s contribution of his or her time and talents, legal or otherwise.
Blaine, the Grafton County representative on the NHBA Board of Governors, does family law and general civil litigation, as well as transactional work for individuals, businesses and towns in the area. He is a pro bono and DOVE volunteer as well, and has also volunteered for the Bar’s law-related education programs.
He has served as town moderator for Plymouth since 2006 and is currently moderator for the Pemi-Baker Regional School District and the Plymouth School District. Other involvements have included Plymouth town selectman, member and chair of the zoning board, and other civic and community groups. He recently joined the Speare Memorial Hospital board.
He teaches Sunday school, has coached baseball and basketball, and served as a cub scout and boy scout leader.
“Quentin is a thoughtful and dedicated lawyer who gives unselfishly of his time to improve the lives of others. He is well deserving of this recognition,” Tenn said.
Cheryl Sessions |
Public Sector/Public Interest Law Award: Cheryl Sessions, Housing Advocate
Cheryl Sessions, in-house counsel and policy director for ROC USA, LLC in Concord, has been selected as the recipient of the NHBA’s 2010 Outstanding Service in Public Sector/Public Interest Law award.
Sessions, nominated by attorney Peter T. Beach of the Sheehan Phinney Bass + Green law firm, has helped to perfect a strategy to enable residents in mobile home parks, typically people with low and moderate incomes, to form cooperatives to purchase the mobile home parks, providing them with stability and the potential to progress economically. Sessions originally worked for the NH Community Loan Fund on this project but since has become the lead lawyer in expanding this concept from a statewide to national scale. “Attorney Sessions took a program that made good economic and social justice sense in NH and articulated the legal theories, policy initiatives, the tax-exempt purposes, and the legal models that could be extracted and used as a model for the country,” said Beach in his nomination letter.
Sessions, admitted to the Bar in 1985, is a Franklin Pierce Law Center graduate.
Cathy Shanelaris |
L. Jonathan Ross Award for Outstanding Commitment to Legal Services for the Poor: Catherine Shanelaris
Attorney Catherine Shanelaris of Nashua will be presented with this year's L. Jonathan Ross Award for Outstanding Commitment to Legal Services for the Poor.
Shanelaris is passionate about Pro Bono and access to legal services for those in need. Over the years she has consistently taken challenging cases for some of the most vulnerable clients, focusing on family law issues. And this is just the beginning. She mentors newer attorneys, serves as faculty at Pro Bono training programs and coordinates and participates in Pro Bono referral marathons. A member of the Pro Bono Board, Cathy is actively engaged in setting Pro Bono policy and lends her experience and knowledge to statewide legal services planning. Humble about her many contributions, Cathy is a steadfast and loyal volunteer, who brings an infectious sense of humor and a profound sense of fairness to all she does. A founding member and partner of the law firm Shanelaris & Schirch, Cathy received her B.A. in political science from the University of New Hampshire and her J.D. from Franklin Pierce Law Center. She is also a member of the NH Supreme Court's Access to Justice Commission and a trained marital mediator.
Jennifer Parent |
At the Gender Equality Breakfast...
Hollman Award for Gender Equality
The breakfast also will feature the presentation of the NHBA Gender Equality Committee’s Philip S. Hollman Award, recognizing dedication to promoting respect and fair treatment for all members of the justice system.
The 2009 recipient of the Hollman Award is Jennifer Parent of McLane, Graf, Raulerson & Middleton in Manchester. In a nomination letter Parent was lauded for "legal practice and community involvement [that] clearly show[s] that she is dedicated to promoting gender equality throughout the legal system." Parent is a founding member of the NH Women's Bar Association and was recently honored with the organization's Trailblazer award.
The award was established on the occasion of Judge Hollman’s retirement from the Superior Court in 2003. Judge Hollman was an original member of the Task Force on Women in the Bar in 1988 and has been a member of the Committee since that time.
Breakfast details.
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