What Would "Room Rater" Say?
It’s been a while. No blogging since the pandemic started (other then my last piece offering to assist licensed professions with pro bono help during COVID). It occurs to me that I haven’t been blogging in this strange new world of public meetings being held on Zoom and similar platforms. It was the last special meeting of the Burlington City Council on September 8, 2020 that has awoken me from this slumber. To be…
Governor Phil Scott of Vermont just issued this call for volunteers for folks from a wide range of health care professions to volunteer their services during this time of need. I’m not a health care professional, but I’ve worked with health care professionals for most of my legal career on licensure issues. I am offering my services, pro bono, to any Vermont health care professional or health care professional coming to Vermont to offer their…
Sprinkled Ice-Cream Unicorn
A few weeks ago the Vermont Secretary of State, Jim Condos, made a mistake. He posted… and then deleted an “offer” regarding a $75 coupon from Costco…. that turned out to be a scam.
Fellow blogger John Walters covered the story but from more of a political bent. As I’ve explained in the past, this blog is focused on legal issues, my (somewhat anemic) political blog can be found here. What are the legal…
Contemplating School Law and Equal Pay at the Blue Lagoon in Iceland
Most of my readership is in Vermont (at least according to Google Analytics) but even those of you outside Vermont, even outside of the U.S. may have heard about the most recent news coming from our little corner of the world. No I’m not talking about Bernie Sanders or Howard Dean, but rather the Burlington High School Girls Soccer Team, the Seahorses. On Friday the 18th of October, the Seahorses were “yellow carded” after midfielder…
Beginning at the Ending, Mass MOCA, North Adams, Massachusetts
We last left off after a review of the Grey Areas of Professional Licensing in Vermont and the Burden of Proof in Professional Licensing cases. In part three of this series, we will be reviewing who has the authority to “charge” unprofessional conduct. In Vermont, as previously discussed, we have four separate entities that regulate professional discipline. The Vermont Agency of Education regulates teachers. The Vermont Board of Medical Practice (under the umbrella of…
Yesterday I received a notice from the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office, Office of Professional Regulation (OPR), informing me (and presumably every other person who is registered as a public notary in Vermont) that there is a new sheriff in town involved in the oversight and regulation of notaries public. Here’s a copy of the notice. All notary registrations are now going to go through OPR and treated just like all the other professions regulated…
The World's Largest Carousel at The House On The Rock in Dodgeville, WI
We last left off with a broad comparative analysis between the four different professional regulatory systems in Vermont. Educators, attorneys, physicians and everyone else. I don’t plan on spending too much time, if any, in this series discussing attorney discipline. Namely because Bar Counsel Mike Kennedy is far more versed in this area and has already given a great overview of the Vermont attorney disciplinary system in his blog “Ethical Grounds.” Since the licensing…
Fog and Foliage in Nebraska Notch - Stowe, VT
As recently reported by the Burlington Free Press, one of the Burlington High School guidance counselors was charged with six counts of unprofessional conduct. The initial charges ranged from what I would characterize as employment or personnel issues that on their face do not appear to rise to the level of unprofessional conduct, to the very serious allegation of falsifying a student’s record. The Vermont Agency of Education initially sought a 364 day suspension…
An Emergency Waiting to Happen.
There’s been plenty of press coverage about the Burlington School Board’s Emergency Meeting that was held at 9:00 PM this past Sunday. Sunday also happened to be both Easter and April Fools’ Day. Vermont Digger’s headline characterized the meeting as delaying the release of an ongoing racial bias investigation, while the Burlington Free Press, alluded to whether the meeting itself, as warned and conducted, constituted a violation of Vermont’s Open Meeting Law. The…
Windham County Courthouse - Newfane, VT
If any of you have ever baked bread, you know that you are only supposed to knead the dough for so long before it starts to impact the quality of the final product. Some things aren’t meant to be touched, if at all. Related to this is the old Vermont proverb, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Sometimes a client will come into the office and we’ll decide the best thing to do in…