BP: And it’s a two-year term?
RC: Yes.
BP: So what does that mean for Rich Cassidy and this office and this desk?
RC: It means that I am busier than ever.
Since the annual meeting this year, I have
been making an effort to get to every drafting committee meeting, and as many of the
joint editorial board committee meetings
as I can.
BP: Make that concrete, what does that
mean? Every month?
RC: I attended five drafting committee
weekends this fall. There will be five more
between the first of the year and the end of
April. So for six months out of the year, almost every other Thursday afternoon, I hustle out to the airport and fly to our meeting
site, often Chicago.
At a drafting committee weekend typically at least three committees are working. The president and I split the meetings
and go from one to another to keep track
of what is happening. We pay particular
attention to decisions that may affect enactability. We take the pulse of the pipeline to have the right volume for upcoming
annual meetings. A few years ago, we had
twelve acts for second reading and approval during one a seven-day meeting—that’s
too much.
So I attend those meetings and try to get
home on Saturday night. I will be doing that
next spring and I anticipate for three years
thereafter.
Of course, there other meetings, telephone calls, email and reading to do.
BP: Your annual meeting is seven days
long?
RC: It is. Until very recently it was eight
days.
BP: And you meet twice a year? You have
a mid- year meeting?
RC: We have a mid-year meeting that is
attended by the Executive Committee and
the Committee on Scope and Program.
BP: Is that meeting shorter?
RC: It is three days, although for me it’s
five days because the leadership also does
a strategic planning meeting and a coordination meeting with the leadership of the
Uniform Law Commission of Canada.
BP: One of the perks of being president
is that you get to decide where the two annual meetings that you have to run will be?
RC: That’s right.
BP: So you are working on that already?
www.vtbar.org
RC: Yes. We have agreed to bring the
2016 Annual Meeting of the Uniform Law
Commission to the Stowe Mountain Lodge.
That will be the first time in the 124-year
history of the Conference that an annual
meeting has been conducted in Vermont. I
am smiling as I say that, because I love Vermont and Becky and I have worked with
these people for a long time and know
many of them very well. Most have never
been here. We are looking forward to seeing them experience this state that we love.
They will love it too.
BP: So this is the big meeting, the weeklong meeting. How many people are coming to Vermont in 2016?
RC: There are 381 commissioners, all
lawyers, judges, or law professors. I expect around three hundred members of the
Conference for most of the week. Most will
bring their spouses or partners. The drafting committees will bring their reporters,
their ABA liaisons, and many observers. The
Conference staff will be here. That should
total about seven hundred people, including spouses, partners, children, and other
guests.
BP: That’s an amazing number for that
long a period of time.
RC: Yes, it takes real commitment, but
these people demonstrate it.
BP: That’s going to have a big economic
impact on this state, hopefully.
RC: I think it will. The room rents alone
will bring half a million dollars in revenue. I
expect that the direct impact on Vermont to
be a million and a half dollars, maybe more.
BP: Restaurants, entertainment, car rentals …
RC: All of that and more. It’s a wonderful gift that we have the privilege of bringing to Vermont. Some members aren’t always in meetings; some will take some time
besides Sunday afternoon to do side-trips.
And spouses, partners, and family members will be doing sightseeing in the Stowe
area. We are going to put together a great
meeting for them. We need to find some
things for people to do, and plan some social events, but that won’t be difficult.
BP: It’s a great opportunity. You know,
until we talked a week or two ago, I would
have just assumed, that this was the first
time a Vermonter would be president of
the Uniform Law Commission, and you corrected me.
RC: I will not be the first president from
Vermont, but the first in a very long time.
George Brigham Young, from Newport,
served a two-year term as president of
the Conference from 1925 through 1927.
I don’t know much about him, but I have
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • WINTER 2014
learned a little, and I intend to learn more.
BP: What do we know about him?
RC: He was a very prominent Vermont
lawyer. He was the president of the Vermont Bar Association and general counsel
to the National Life Insurance Company. I
read some of his remarks at Vermont Bar
Association meetings and he was interested
in federalism, an issue that remains a very
important concern for the Commission. He
was eager that state law remain vital and be
the primary governing law on subjects like
domestic relations, commercial law, property law, estates and trusts, tort law, and criminal law. All are traditionally matters of state
law. In recent years, there has been more
federal involvement in those areas. For one
thing, globalization has drawn the federal
government into those subjects. For example, there is international concern about
child custody and visitation, and so treaties and conventions have been adopted
that relate to those issues. One thing that
I didn’t know—and probably wouldn’t have
known, except for my involvement with the
Conference—is that not all treaties are selfexecuting. A treaty may have been adopted by the United States, but that doesn’t
necessarily mean that the laws are in place
to implement it. So the ULC works with the
State Department an