GOOD FOOD Good for People
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WINTER 2013/14 NON-PROFIT U. S. POSTAGE PAID MAILED FROM ZIP CODE 04330 THE ALUMNI MAGAZINE FOR VERMONT LAW SCHOOL PERMIT NO. 121 GOOD FOOD Good for people. Good for the planet. 143534_cover.indd 1 1/10/14 4:50 PM Earn Your Next Degree Online from vermont Law School Vermont Law School’s degrees in environmental and energy law are 100% online, do not require the GRE, and can be completed in as few as 18 months. Learn how to empower yourself to create positive, lasting change in your career. • Online LLM in Environmental Law • Online LLM in Energy Law • Online Master of Environmental Law and Policy • Online Master of Energy Regulation and Law call 1-866-441-3807 for more information Earn CLE credits with your favorite Vermont Law professors! Vermont Law School is pleased to announce a new online CLE program, designed just for Vermont Law graduates. Developed with the Lexis® CLE team at LexisNexis, this suite of customized, on-demand CLE courses features your favorite VLS professors, are nationally accredited, and are available 24/7. As a Vermont Law School alumnus, you can access courses taught by Professors Cheryl Hanna, Patrick Parenteau, and Stephanie Willbanks—and many other experts in a variety of practice areas, skills, and ethics. Register online now to see a full list of courses available! http://lexiscle-lsalum.smartpros.com/modules/profile/registration.aspx 143534_cover.indd 2 1/13/14 6:43 PM WINTER 2013/14 Volume 27, Number 1 PRESIDENT AND DEAN Marc Mihaly PROFESSOR OF LAW AND VICE PRESIDENT FOR EXTERNAl RElATIONS Cheryl Hanna EDITORS Jim Collins Peter Glenshaw Ariel Alberti Wiegard CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Patty McIlvaine Melissa Schlobohm MELP’12 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ian Aldrich Kristen Fountain Ben Hewitt Karen Kaliski Jamie Renner Susan Salter Reynolds SpECIAl THANKS Lucy Halse MELP’13 Tori Jones J.P.M. Wiegard ’13 DESIGN, ART DIRECTION, AND PRODUCTION Flannel PRINTING J.S. McCarthy Printers PUBlISHED BY VERMONT LAW SCHOOl 164 Chelsea Street, PO Box 96 South Royalton, VT 05068 www.vermontlaw.edu Send address changes to [email protected] or call 802-831-1312. PRINTED WITH SOY-BASED INKS ON RECYClED pApER. © 2014 Vermont Law School LEFT: PATRONS GATHER AT THE WORTHY BURGER, A CRAFT BEER AND BURGER BAR NEAR THE VERMONT LAW CAMpUS. 143534_loquitor.indd 1 1/7/14 4:30 PM special food issue CONTENTS Nourishment The Center for Agriculture and Food Systems: seedbed and shepherd of a healthier body of law. DEPARTMENTS BY KRISTEN FOUNTAIN LETTER FROM THE DEAN INTER ALIA Reflections on a school that The Farm Bill, climate change, continues to follow its gut. ..............4 and the 2014 Environmental 10 Watch List .....................................47 DISCOVERY A consortium brings Vermont’s VERMONT ALBUM ............................ 48 food players to the table. Plus, partnering with UVM. ......................6 CLASS NOTES News from the VLSAA, your classmates, and friends. ................32 143534_loquitor.indd 2 1/9/14 10:55 PM Entrepreneurial Spirits What do lawyers have to do with Vermont’s local food movement? (How Will Duane ’15 spent his summer vacation and maybe found his career.) BY BEN HEWITT 16 Grace Before Dinner Philanthropy and public education go hand-in-hand at this influential foundation. But that’s just for starters. BY JIM COLLINS 20 The Food Network A smorgasbord of VLS graduates who are all over the menu. ON THE COVER: BLUEBERRY PIE FROM LoU’S 25 RESTAURANT, HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE. PHOTOGRAPH BY Rob BOSSI. 143534_loquitor.indd 3 1/8/14 4:20 PM LOQUITUR 4 143534_loquitor.indd 4 1/8/14 4:20 PM LETTER FROM THE DEAN COOKin’ Dear Alumni and Friends, As you read this, Vermont Law School is halfway through its 40th anniversary. This academic year we have much to celebrate, to be grateful for, and to share. But as many of you know from your own lives, “40” has a way of asking us who we are and who we want to be. Vermont Law, despite being an institution, is no different: over the last 18 months we have thought carefully about our mission, our values, and what we want our future to look like. What did we find? That this law school’s strength is its difference. To a person, every mem- ber of our family is unusually engaged in matters of fairness and matters of principle. We are a community of risk-takers and advocates who actually want to change the world, not fit into it. And we are a school that knows you can’t solve the world’s problems without educating the world’s problem solvers. As we begin the new year, I’m pleased to say Vermont Law and the University of Vermont (UVM) are creating the first “3-2” program in the nation, in which students will complete an undergraduate degree in three years and a JD in two years. Additionally, eight of our faculty will begin teaching at the UVM School of Business Administration as part of the university’s new Sustainable Entrepreneurship MBA program. And our two-year, Accelerated JD has proven to be a great success. We are also working hard to share our news in a way that adds real substance to the legal conversation, and to involve the entire Vermont Law community in living and broadcasting our mission. To that end, it is only fitting that the magazine you are holding now—a first, teasing glance at the new Vermont Law—is our Food Issue. We believe that food is a unique vehicle for change, as it is intimately tied up with everything from human health and the environment, to poverty and immigration, to law, politics, and culture, on every step of its journey from farm to plate. Food also brings people together in a way that few other things do, and at this time of change we find ourselves in very good company. (“Company,” if you didn’t know, is derived from the Latin com (together with) and panis (bread), meaning those who break bread together.) Our alumni are helping to fund the future of food and farming; our faculty are studying the front lines of the movement; and even our food service providers are filling our bellies and our souls with local, organic products. We are all working together for a resilient future. As this issue reminds us, Vermont Law is an incredibly fertile place that encourages innova- tion and risk-taking. Put simply, we have and will continue to follow our gut. And we are hungry for the next course. Sincerely, Marc Mihaly President and Dean 5 WINTER 2013/14 143534_loquitor.indd 5 1/9/14 10:55 PM DISCOVERY VERMONT: THE EMERGING EPICENTER OF FOOD SYSTEMS EDUCATION The presidents of six Vermont higher nomic drivers—education and agricul- Agriculture, speaking on behalf of education institutions, include Ver- ture,” said Dean Mihaly. “Vermont Law Secretary Chuck Ross, said the consor- mont Law School, signed a memoran- School believes that restructuring our tium was a top priority for Ross and dum of understanding in November agricultural enterprise is key to ad- the Shumlin administration. “We talk 2013 to create the Vermont Higher dressing climate change. Each of the about the renaissance of agriculture,” Education Food Systems Consortium. schools in the new consortium is de- she said. “It’s real. Today, farming and This unique program will pool the re- voted to advancing community-based food systems are luring a new work- sources of public and private colleges agriculture. Together we can utilize force to this sector. There is an op- devoted to food-systems education, Vermont’s iconic brand to attract more portunity—a very real opportunity for training, policy analysis, and research, students from around the nation and Vermont to be a nationally recognized and will make Vermont a premier des- the world, and offer them a more com- center for food system education.” tination for postsecondary students plete education.” “Vermont’s higher education insti- with an interest in promoting sustain- Vermont is known worldwide for its tutions have graduated generations able and robust food systems. Degrees commitment to local foods, sustain- of Vermont farmers, foresters, and in food systems will range from agri- able food production, and for the value-added entrepreneurs,” stated cultural production and sustainability innovative, entrepreneurial spirit of Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin. to diet and nutrition-related curricula. its inhabitants. Its artisanal products, “Today they are taking a historic step The collaboration will combine applied including cheeses, beer, and maple of doing this work better together, studies of agriculture from the state’s syrup, are an important part of the with this collaboration offering technical schools, research focus from state’s economy. students from across the country an the University of Vermont, and a post- The Vermont Council on Rural De- unprecedented set of experiences secondary education in public policy velopment first advanced the consor- in our working landscape. This will component at Vermont Law School. tium idea. Other participating institu- attract new youth to rural Vermont Vermont Law School President tions—all of which offer agricultural communities, spur innovation in the and Dean Marc Mihaly attended the education in various forms—include food and forest economies, and help signing ceremony at the Statehouse in Green Mountain College, Sterling Col- all of us who are working to conserve Montpelier, along with Laurie Ristino, lege, University of Vermont, and the Vermont’s working landscape in pro- Associate Professor of Law and Direc- Vermont State College system (princi- duction for the long-term future.” u tor of the Center for Agriculture and pally Vermont Technical College). Food Systems at Vermont Law. “This State executives also attended the collaboration advances an alliance event in Montpelier.