Please join us on Thursday September 26 for the New Hampshire Bar Foundation Annual Dinner, Fundraiser, and Award Ceremony at the Manchester Country Club. Cocktails will be served at 5:30pm and dinner is served at 6:30pm.

The evening will feature a video presentation from public interest lawyers from 603 Legal Aid, Disability Rights Center, NH Legal Assistance and Tony Naro with the Friends of New Hampshire Drug Courts sharing why they do the legal aid work as well as why it is crucial to fund.

Followed by the presentation of the Frank Rowe Kenison and Robert E. Kirby Awards.

Keynote Speaker

2024 Frank Rowe Kenison Award Recipient

Attorney Robert P. Sullivan

Robert Sullivan attended Fall Mountain Regional High School in Alstead. Thereafter, he went to Boston College and Suffolk Law School, being admitted to the Bar in 1977.

Sullivan’s legal career began in the spring of 1978, when he was hired to enforce the Housing Code in Nashua at a salary of $9,000 per year. He served the City of Nashua in several positions, culminating in 1982 when he was its deputy corporation counsel. The corporation counsel at that time was the late H. Philip Howorth, whom Sullivan reveres to this day as his mentor in the law and a veritable father figure.

In 1982, Sullivan was hired by the City of Portsmouth as the city attorney, where he remained for 40 years. In Portsmouth, he provided legal advice and representation to the entire city government and its officials and employees. He was also the primary legal advisor to five full-time city managers over that period, as well as two interim city managers.

His work in Nashua and Portsmouth included the representation of all municipal boards and commissions, notably in land use regulation. This included substantial litigation at the Superior Court level as well as many cases before the New Hampshire Supreme Court and the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Many of these cases affected the development of land use law in the state.

It is estimated that Sullivan appeared at over 2,800 evening meetings during the four decades of his career.

Sullivan spend 30 years as chair of the Executive Committee of the Coakley Landfill Federal Superfund site in North Hampton. He also advised and did all the drafting for the 1987 Charter Commission, which entirely rewrote the municipal charter of the City of Portsmouth.

In 2005, Sullivan received the Good Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America, Daniel Webster Council. He then received the Eileen D. Foley Award from the Friends Forever International in 2009. He was also named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Portsmouth Rotary.

Sullivan served on the Seacoast Area Chapter of the American Red Cross, the board of trustees for the New Hampshire Municipal Association Property-Liability Trust, the board of Compass Care.

Since retiring from full-time employment two years ago, Sullivan remains with the City of Portsmouth in a part-time of counsel capacity.

2024 Robert E. Kirby Award Recipient

Attorney Israel F. Piedra

Israel Piedra is a shareholder at Welts, White & Fontaine, PC, in Nashua. He joined the firm as an associate in 2015 following his graduation from Boston College Law School and was elevated to shareholder in 2022. Piedra’s practice is divided between general civil litigation, including personal injury, timber trespass, and commercial disputes; appeals; and land use and zoning matters.

Piedra is an active member of the Bar and the community, currently serving on the New Hampshire Bar Association’s Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Committee and previously on its New Lawyers Committee for eight years. He also graduated from the NHBA’s Leadership Academy in 2022. Piedra is the treasurer of the Manchester City Library Board of Trustees and a member of the boards of the Boys & Girls Club of Souhegan Valley and the New Hampshire Association for Justice. He also serves on the New Hampshire Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission and chairs its Limited English Proficiency Task Force.

Piedra was elected to two terms in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, representing Manchester’s Ward 2, during which he was appointed to the Special Committee on Redistricting and the Committee on State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs. Each year, he volunteers his time to the We the People program, mentoring and serving as mock judge for high school students participating in the mock trials for the annual state competitions, which he proudly won as a member of the Milford High School team during his student years. He has been featured on the “40 Under Forty” lists of both the New Hampshire Union Leader and the Nashua Telegraph.

Piedra received his bachelor’s degree from Bates College with majors in music and politics and his juris doctor from Boston College Law School, where he was a member of the Environmental Affairs Law Review. A New Hampshire native, he is exceptionally proud and honored to receive the Robert E. Kirby Award.