Editor’s note: VTDigger is profiling the major party candidates for attorney general.
[S]T. JOHNSBURY — When Deborah Bucknam began practicing law in the Northeast Kingdom in the early 1980s, she quickly became part of a legal trio referred to as the “Killer Bees.”
The members — whose last names all begin with B — included Joe Benning, who later became state Senate minority leader, and Robert Bent, now a Superior Court judge in Caledonia County.
Benning said that as a bee, Bucknam earned a reputation as a fierce champion for clients.
“A lawyer shall represent their client zealously within the bounds of the law, and Deb knows how to be zealous,” Benning said. “I would say that there are attorneys — I’m sure — who have experienced her zealousness and felt as if they were beaten up or overwhelmed, but that’s one of the reasons that she was one of the Killer Bees.”
In her more than 30 years of legal practice, Bucknam — who’s running for attorney general as a Republican — has litigated hundreds of cases in all areas of law, often achieving positive outcomes for clients.
Pat Mitchell, president of the Elizabeth Brown Humane Society in the Northeast Kingdom town of Victory, said Bucknam helped protect her organization’s tax exempt status after the town challenged it. She said Bucknam has worked diligently, and offered a better deal than other lawyers.
“They all wanted a huge retainer, and I did not have that to give them,” Mitchell said. “And Deb contacted me, and I told her that we had no money. She said, ‘Let’s worry about saving the animals’ homes first.’”
But talk to area lawyers, and sharply divergent views emerge.
Members of her St. Johnsbury firm — Bucknam & Black — said she sets a tone of hard work in the office while fostering a familial vibe.
“She is often there before me in the morning and well after I leave,” said attorney Amy Davis, who has worked at Bucknam’s small firm for just over a year. “She really cares about her clients and their outcomes. If we have a case that doesn’t go in her favor, it’s not that she’s upset she lost, it’s that they haven’t gotten the justice that they deserve.”
Mary Mcleod, a lawyer who worked at Bucknam & Black for three years, said she got along very well with her former boss, adding that Bucknam frequently tackled legal cases comprehensively, with a big team.
“She works a lot of hours and prepares in immense detail for trial. And that requires a lot of work with colleagues,” Mcleod said.
Yet while Bucknam can point to many allies — from former clients to legal colleagues — the buzz around Bucknam in the Northeast Kingdom is also frequently negative.
A number of area lawyers criticize what they consider her verbally abusive remarks in the courtroom, while some former clients say they have been financially stung through exorbitant billing practices.
Addressing frustrations of lawyers and clients who describe her as abrasive, Benning said, “If there is that kind of feeling out there, I would recognize where that is coming from.”
“But I don’t interpret that as being unethical behavior,” he added.
The Republican leader is not endorsing a candidate in the attorney general’s race, pointing to the close contact he would have with either Bucknam or Democrat TJ Donovan in his position on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Benning added that he has a lot of respect for Donovan, the Chittenden County state’s attorney.
Looking to be a watchdog
Bucknam keeps a neat office with comfortable chairs. Her walls are dotted with family photos and legal certificates. One especially large frame holds a hand-written invitation to the 2005 White House holiday party.
Bucknam and her husband went to the party that year, invited as a sign of thanks for their service on behalf of the Republican Party. A lifelong Republican, Bucknam has served as the chair of the Caledonia County GOP and briefly in 2013 as vice chair of the state party.
Below the invitation is a photo of the Bucknams smiling next to the Bushes.
The Bucknams — who have two children — settled in Vermont in the mid-1970s. She attended Vermont Law School and graduated cum laude in 1979. The Republican candidate often works in the messy world of family court, handling divorce and custody cases, though she has litigated civil and criminal cases and has argued before the Vermont Supreme Court.
Today, the firm she founded in 1986 sits on Main Street, right across from the Caledonia County courthouse.
A Massachusetts native, Bucknam taught for a few years at a high school in Swampscott but became disillusioned by the issues plaguing the education system there.
Recalling her childhood days — when chewing gum in class and wearing short skirts were among the biggest infractions — Bucknam said the high school atmosphere in the Bay State was disturbing.
“By the time I started teaching, there was drugs, stealing, vandalism, and I said, ‘I don’t want to raise my kids here,’” she recently said from behind her office desk.
While the attorney general’s race is her first bid for public office, Bucknam wrote on local and national political matters in a blog between 2012 and 2014. The topics ranged from criticism of President Barack Obama to frustration with local politicians.
In a 2013 post, Bucknam questioned whether Umbrella, a local organization focused on reducing domestic violence, was over-reporting cases of sexual assault in the Kingdom in order to maintain its own government funding.
Her outlook in the attorney general’s race is similarly skeptical of government, and one of her two top priorities is establishing a watchdog group that would investigate complaints about government filed by citizens and small businesses.
“I know there are a lot of good people in state government — I’ve met ’em, I’ve dealt with them,” Bucknam said. “But you get into a culture sometimes, and you don’t have the leadership that says, ‘Come on, let’s treat people like customers.’”
Her other major plank is addressing the state’s opiate crisis. Citing the scourge that plagued her days teaching in Massachusetts, Bucknam says Vermont needs to ensure it is a place where families can flourish. She promises to set up an opiate task force, if elected, and find the best way to address the crisis.
She said the work Donovan has done on the issue — which includes the establishment of pretrial diversion to treatment through Rapid Intervention Community Court — needs to be further studied.
“We need to analyze these programs and see what’s working,” she said. “Even if they sound good, they may not be.”
Bucknam said what separates her from Donovan is her extensive experience in private practice, which she said will allow her to find efficiency and waste at the attorney general’s office.
“In the Northeast Kingdom, legal services are a luxury most people can’t afford,” she said. “You are constantly trying to analyze how to proceed.”
But while Bucknam is encouraging financial prudence in government, some clients have said she overcharged through deceptive practices.
A long-ago reprimand
A 1992 review by Vermont’s Professional Responsibility Board — which oversees the conduct of lawyers — found that Bucknam had unilaterally tried to change a fee arrangement with a client.
Guy Favreau hired Bucknam in the winter of 1987 after suffering a serious accident at work. Bucknam promised her client that she would fight for his right to worker’s compensation benefits.
But then she went further.
Bucknam argued that Favreau should also sue his current employer — Asplundh — for benefits. Favreau pushed back against Bucknam’s idea, explaining that his father — an Asplundh employee — had helped him land the job.
“Consequently,” the 1992 report reads, “Mr. Favreau was concerned that Asplundh might take retaliatory measures against his father.”
Bucknam reiterated her belief that Asplundh was a necessary target, and the Favreaus acquiesced.
Bucknam eventually won the suit against the original employer, but the Asplundh suit was dismissed. After her work ended, Bucknam returned to the Favreaus and said she required more payment for the Asplundh suit than what had been agreed to in writing.
In the board’s examination of the case, it found, among other things, that Bucknam had demanded fees she was not entitled to, inappropriately threatened to withdraw from the case, and verbally abused and threatened the Favreaus.
“(Bucknam) has been found to have committed acts involving dishonesty, deceit and misrepresentation with her clients,” the panel’s review reads. “Her conduct was prejudicial to the administration of justice.”
The panel recommended a six-month suspension for Bucknam, citing a series of ethical violations over a year. The Vermont Supreme Court eventually overturned the panel’s punishment but not its findings, instead issuing a public reprimand and putting Bucknam on probation for a year.
Bucknam said she made a mistake in the Favreau case. She blames it on her own hubris, which resulted in her thinking the Favreaus were insufficiently grateful for her hard work.
Bucknam declined to comment on whether she has been the subject of other formal complaints throughout her career. Complaints are not disclosed publicly unless they result in official charges.
She added that she has represented hundreds of clients and routinely acts in their best interests.
“I’ve always followed the rules. I never took a drink until I was 21, I never smoked pot because it’s illegal, so you think of yourself as this good person,” she said. “I’ve always been pretty feisty and pretty aggressive with my lawsuits, and I think I provide really good service to my clients.”
Similar accusations today
Recent litigation describes other instances where Bucknam was accused of engaging in imprudent legal work and deceptive tactics that led to high bills.
In 2008, Bucknam charged a woman $239,062 in a divorce. The client, Gloria Jackson, sued Bucknam, accusing her of grossly overcharging.
Jackson’s lawyer in the lawsuit, Herbert Ogden, enlisted an outside legal expert to review Bucknam’s charging practices.
That expert, Patricia Benelli, described a number of out-of-the-ordinary billing practices Bucknam employed, including billing in hundredths of an hour without breaking down exactly what work was being done.
“The bill is really to the second,” Bucknam said in her office, arguing that it made for the most accurate charges. “Now, I don’t think you can find another attorney that will do that, frankly.”
Benelli also pointed to instances where multiple lawyers took many hours to collectively finish basic tasks. For instance, Bucknam charged Jackson 13.49 hours — or $1,888.60 — to organize files.
“The file, however, is not at all well organized,” Benelli wrote, “so one has to wonder where all the organizing went.”
Jackson was also charged more than $40,000 for interoffice conferences and memos and more than $85,000 for paralegal services.
More than $62,000 of those paralegal charges were for Michael Roosevelt, who Benelli determined wasn’t a paralegal but a recently hired law clerk. Roosevelt had no discernible legal background and was an adjunct professor of art at Lyndon State College before working for Bucknam.
Benelli also found that Jackson was charged more than $2,600 to search and retrieve land records, a cache of documents that the firm ended up losing.
To mitigate further billing by Bucknam, Jackson herself spent most of a winter tracking down the same records. Jackson’s time was never credited to lower her bills, Benelli wrote.
As in the Favreau case, Bucknam was accused of deceptively altering the financial terms of her contract with Jackson. The lawsuit also says that in an effort to ensure payment, Bucknam pressured Jackson into signing a promissory note that was secured by three mortgages on Jackson’s property.
In the end, a confidential settlement was reached and all the claims were dropped.
While Ogden — Jackson’s lawyer — could not comment on the size of the settlement, he said his client was “very happy” with Bucknam’s payout.
Bucknam also did not comment about the Jackson case, citing the confidentiality agreement.
Ogden is currently representing another client, Michel Molleur, in a civil case against Bucknam. The allegations, which came after Bucknam represented Molleur in a prolonged guardianship case, echo previous claims.
Molleur alleges that Bucknam unfairly raised bills by enlisting experts who weren’t needed and engaging in other counterproductive work. Bucknam points out that over 10 years of somewhat sporadic work, she charged Molleur only $64,743.
While Ogden declined to comment on Molleur’s ongoing case, he questioned Bucknam’s billing practices and why she required so many hours and assistants for legal preparation.
“I question whether somebody who needed that much assistance with the Jackson case is going to manage to work as attorney general without using a heck of a lot of resources,” he said.
Lawyers indicated that billing practices become open secrets among clients and litigators in a small community like the Kingdom.
Nervous about backlash from Bucknam — including potential litigation — three St. Johnsbury lawyers privately said they had been involved in cases where their client’s bill would be half or even a third of what Bucknam charged.
“In cases in which I would expect her bills to be similar to mine, Bucknam’s bills were routinely substantially higher than mine were,” one lawyer said.
Turning the tables on clients
Bucknam has also sued former clients in small claims court more than 60 times. In comparison, Benning could recall just one or two instances of suing clients in his three decades practicing law. The American Bar Association advises against it.
In most of the small claims cases — which all dealt with unpaid amounts under $5,000 — the defendants either set up a payment plan in court or settled with Bucknam outside the system.
Declaring that a day’s work deserves a day’s pay, Bucknam said her hourly rate of $210 is low for someone with her experience. She also said that while bills may seem high, they are often dependent on what the other side does and demonstrate the inefficiencies of the court system.
Bucknam pointed VTDigger to a number of happy clients, including Matt Kvam, of Burke.
Kvam said Bucknam’s price “was reasonable, considering the services rendered. She was hardworking. I had no complaints.” Kvam is such a fan of Bucknam that he contributed to her campaign, paying for her purple campaign shirts.
Yet Bucknam’s longstanding reputation as a bee has not subsided.
In the 1992 panel’s finding of fact in the Favreau case, Bucknam was described as being “angry and threatening” to her clients.
“The Favreaus told (Bucknam) that Mr. Favreau was not taking home much money each week and that, with three children, they could barely get food on the table,” the report reads. “(Bucknam’s) response was, ‘That’s not my problem. That’s your problem. I have bills, too.’”
In the more recent Jackson case, Bucknam sent a series of salty emails to Ogden in which she called Benelli’s expert testimony on her billing practices a “pig’s breakfast.”
“Wow,” Bucknam began a subsequent email to Ogden on Oct. 22, 2009. “Having read your complaint, and the work you have done in this case, not only would I question your veracity, but your competence.”
Ogden said Bucknam’s emails “were too personal and unfair.” He added that he has read court transcripts of other Bucknam cases that “raised hair on the back of (his) neck.”
Jay Abramson, a St. Johnsbury lawyer who has worked cases against Bucknam, said he was often offended by her courtroom approach.
“She would engage in personal attacks against my client that were unnecessary and inappropriate,” he said. “It was her way of trying to gin up the acrimony without any purpose to further her client’s interest. I believed it to be overtly vindictive and mean.”
Bill Neylon, another area lawyer who has worked in cases against Bucknam for 30 years, kept his remarks short and simple.
“I will not support Bucknam in her election bid for attorney general,” he said.
Bucknam said she was aware of her reputation but that criticism against her often takes on a sexist tone. She said she’s been called a bitch throughout her legal career and that she has been reprimanded by judges for raising her voice while her male counterparts rarely receive such scoldings.
“There is a prejudice that I think is almost unconscious — it’s a human condition,” Bucknam said. “I think we all need to feel superior to somebody.”
“With male lawyers, being tough is OK, but with a female lawyer it’s not so OK,” Bucknam added.
Both of her daughters have become lawyers. One of them, Jennifer Black, is a partner in the firm and works remotely from Stoneham, Massachusetts.
“She likes to argue and make her points,” Black said of her mother. “I always admired her because she was fearless going into court.”