Four attorneys have joined the northern New England law
firm of Downs Rachlin Martin PLLC as associates. Attorneys Cathleen E.
Stadecker and Paul A. Smith have joined the Intellectual Property
Practice Group and are based in Burlington; Lisa Fearon has joined the
Regulated Entities Group and will practice in the firm’s St. Johnsbury,
Vt. and Lebanon, N. H. offices; and Drew Kervick has joined the Business
Law Group and is based in the firm’s Burlington Office.
“These are areas that are expected to grow as the economy continues to
recover in New England and across the country,” explained Managing
Partner Paul H. Ode, Jr., “but we have also experienced steady demand
for these services in the past year. These new associates have
outstanding credentials and will quickly add value for the clients we
serve in these mature DRM practice areas.”
Stadecker joins the firm after moving to Vermont from
California, where her practice at the San Francisco office of the firm
of Morrison & Foerster, LLP included trademark litigation, trademark
enforcement, trademark prosecution and copyright counseling. She earned
a bachelor’s degree at Columbia University and a masters degree at
Trinity College, Cambridge University before graduating from Columbia
Law School as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar in 2004. After law school
she clerked for Judge Richard Owen in the Southern District of New
York. She and her family reside in Burlington.
Smith was a summer associate at DRM in 2009 and returns to
the firm after graduating from the University of New Hampshire School of
Law earlier this year. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in
materials science and engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and
Cornell University, respectively. He was a staff engineer at IBM in
Essex Junction and at Energizer in Bennington before entering law school
in 2007. He is the author or co-author of ten published technical
articles in the field of materials science. He is also a Registered
Patent Agent. Smith and his family live in Montpelier.
Fearon, who lives in Lyme, N.H., graduated from Dartmouth
College in 2005 and Vermont Law School, magna cum laude, in 2008. She
received an academic excellence award for earning the highest grades in
three subject areas as a law student and also worked full time at the
South Royalton Legal Clinic for one semester. She was an intern in the
New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office in the summer of 2007 and spent
two years as a law clerk for the New Hampshire Superior Court in Keene,
where she drafted orders for various criminal and civil cases as well as
land use and planning board appeals. She was admitted to the bar in New
Hampshire in 2008. Her practice in the Regulated Entities Group will
involve work in environmental and land use law and in public utility law
in both Vermont and New Hampshire.
Kervick brings experience in the business law field, having
worked for two years as an associate with the Boston firm of Wilmer,
Cutler, Pickering, Hale & Dorr. After moving to Vermont, he served a
year as a law clerk for Justice John A. Dooley of the Vermont Supreme
Court. Kervick earned degrees at Stanford University in Palo Alto,
Calif., and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill before
studying law at Boston College Law School, where he graduated summa cum
laude in May 2007. He is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts and
Vermont. Kervick and his family live in So. Burlington.
DRM is a full-service law firm with more than 60 attorneys and six
offices in Vermont, New Hampshire and New York. DRM provides legal
services to local, national and international clients in practice areas
that include bankruptcy and business restructuring, business law,
captive insurance, energy and telecommunications, family law, health
law, intellectual property, labor and employment, litigation, real
estate and land use, environmental law, tax law and trusts and estates.
The firm represents clients in legislative, regulatory and public
affairs through the Government and Public Affairs group. DRM is the law
firm member for Vermont of Lex Mundi, the world's leading association of
independent law firms.
