Chuck Leahy and Susan Leahy to Join McLane Law Firm

January 30, 2006, MANCHESTER — The law firm of McLane, Graf, Raulerson & Middleton, P.A., with offices in Manchester, Portsmouth, and Concord, is pleased to announce that effective today, Chuck Leahy and Susan Leahy will be joining the firm as of counsel.

Chuck and Susan bring extensive client service experience and professional prominence to the firm’s Estate Planning, Business Succession, Tax and Probate Law practices, practice areas in which McLane already has nine attorneys listed as best in the state, according to Woodward/White’s Best Lawyers in America® guide. Chuck Leahy and Susan Leahy bring the list to eleven in these practice areas, totaling 29 “Best” lawyers firm-wide.

Chuck Leahy will concentrate in the Business Planning, Estate Planning & Administration, Taxation and Trust Administration areas. He is a Life Member of the American Law Institute and holds an adjunct facility position at the University of Maine School of Law. He is admitted in the State of New Hampshire as well as the Federal District Court for this state, the United States Tax Court, First Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Leahy holds an undergraduate degree from Yale University and J.D. from the Harvard Law School.

Susan Leahy will concentrate in the areas of Estate Planning & Administration, Trust Administration and Foundations, Charities & Nonprofit Organizations. She is admitted in the State of New Hampshire as well as the Federal District Court for this state, the United States Tax Court, First Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. Susan currently serves as chair of the New Hampshire Probate Court’s Uniform Trust Code Committee. She was the recipient of the Marilla M. Ricker award from the New Hampshire Women’s Bar and was selected “Lawyer of the Year” by the Merrimack County Bar Association. Susan holds an undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law.

Both Chuck and Susan are Fellows of the American College of Trust & Estate Counsel, an honor granted by way of peer nominations of the membership at large, on the basis of professional reputation and ability in the fields of trusts and estates, and in recognition of contribution to these fields through lecturing, writing, teaching, and involvement in bar activities. This brings to five the number of McLane trusts and estates attorneys who hold this honor.

In addition to their impressive professional credentials, they also bring a long term commitment to New Hampshire through active leadership participation in numerous community activities. Susan currently serves as a trustee of Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth and as a trustee and Chair of Concord 2020. She has served on the Governor’s Commission on New Hampshire in the Twenty-First Century, as a trustee and Chair of the Board of New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, as a trustee and Vice Chair of the Board of Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, as a trustee and Chair of the Board of Dartmouth Hitchcock Alliance, and as a trustee and Chair of the Boards of Concord Hospital and Capital Region Health Care Corporation. Susan also chaired the Concord Zoning Advisory Committee which drafted the city’s present zoning ordinance. Her community recognition includes being named “Citizen of the Year” from the Concord Chamber of Commerce and listing as one of “New Hampshire’s Ten Most Powerful Women” by Business New Hampshire Magazine.

Chuck has served as Legislative Counsel to former Governor Walter Peterson, as a member of the Concord School Board, and as a member and Chair of the Board of Governors of New Hampshire Public Television. He also served as a trustee and Chair of the Board of the White Mountain School, as a director of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, as Chair of the New Hampshire Supreme Court Long Range Planning Committee, and as a founding director of the Concord Trust for Enhancement of Public Education. He is presently a member of the Investment Committee of New Hampshire Charitable Foundation.

“Chuck and Susan embody both the ethics and proactive approach to advancing their fields that have been hallmarks of the McLane Law Firm for almost a century,” said Mike McCluskey, executive director of McLane. “They are a great fit, professionally and culturally, for us, and we could not be more pleased to welcome them to the firm.”

About the McLane Law Firm
Founded in 1919, the McLane Law Firm has grown to the largest full-service law firm in the state of New Hampshire, with offices in Manchester, Concord and Portsmouth. Driven by the firm’s depth of sophisticated legal expertise and an unwavering commitment to client service, McLane has built collaborative and lasting relationships with a broad spectrum of domestic and international clients.