Legal Briefs: News From Around NH

Devine Millimet welcomes 3 new attorneys

Alex J. Manocchi

Jeffrey Weinstein

Peter Leberman

Devine Millimet Attorneys at Law has welcomed three new attorneys to the firm in late June: Associate Alex Manocchi, Peter Leberman and Jeffrey Weinstein

Attorney Manocchi is a graduate of Albany Law School. He joins Devine’s Mergers and Acquisitions Team and Corporate Practice, assisting clients with a variety of business matters, from buying or selling a business to commercial real estate and corporate formations.

Attorney Leberman is a graduate of Washington & Lee University School of Law for his Juris Doctor degree in 1984 and then, in 1988, for his Master of Laws in Taxation from Boston University of Law. He continues to serve the needs of for-profit and nonprofit organizations, healthcare providers, entrepreneurs and families.

Attorney Weinstein is a graduate of Villanova University Law School. He has been a lawyer for 48 years with eight years of experience in trial work, and the other 40 years were spent in corporations as general counsel or chief legal officer managing the legal, risk management, compliance, security, human resources, mergers and acquisitions, boards of directors and insurance sectors.

New Hampshire joins brief in case before U.S. Supreme Court

New Hampshire has joined a coalition of 27 states in a brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule— or at least clarify — the doctrine known as Chevron deference.

“For decades now, unelected bureaucrats at federal agencies have been using a legal principle known as Chevron deference to operate like a fourth branch of the government,” said state Attorney General John Formella in a prepared stratement. “We now see courts deferring to federal agencies as they bend the law, grow their size, and expand their power over the everyday lives of Americans. As a result, New Hampshire small business owners and taxpayers have been seeing their personal rights directly impacted. While we do not think agencies should be eliminated or their expertise ignored, courts should no longer abdicate their job of interpreting the law. The U.S. Supreme Court should overturn Chevron.”

The case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, revolves around a regulation by the National Marine Fisheries Service that requires herring fishing boats to have an additional person on board to serve as a monitor, tracking compliance with federal regulation. Applying Chevron deference, the lower courts held that the Magnuson-Stevens Act allowed the imposition, even though the statute did not expressly authorize it. The fisheries then asked the Supreme Court to take the case — either to “overrule Chevron, or at least clarify that statutory.”

Chevron deference allows courts to defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of a statute.

Because agencies only have the powers that Congress gives them by statute, the doctrine effectively allows agencies to expand their authority whenever statutes are even a little unclear, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

By stacking the deck in the agencies’ favor, the states lose “not only our authority to regulate in ways that matter most, but also our right to have the people we send to Congress make those calls if the federal government tries to take on these issues instead,” according to the brief. — EAGLE TIMES STAFF

Attorneys Sean Leonard and Madeline Lewis join McLane Middleton

The law firm of McLane Middleton has hired attorneys Sean M. Leonard and Madeline S. Lewis.

Sean is an associate in the firm’s Family Law Practice Group in the Manchester office. Before joining McLane Middleton, Sean was a partner in a Maine law firm. He focuses his practice on various family issues, including parental rights and responsibilities, divorce, termination of parental rights and adoption.

Madeline Lewis

Sean Leonard

Madeline is an associate in the firm’s Corporate and Tax Departments, also in Manchester. She has extensive experience advising businesses and individuals on compensatory, employee benefits and employment-related matters in corporate transactions and in day-to-day business management. She helps clients establish, develop, acquire and sell companies and to solve challenging business and legal issues. Madeline has represented public and private companies and individual executives in a range of industries, including technology, healthcare, life sciences and energy. Prior to joining McLane Middleton, she was an attorney at international law firms in New York and Massachusetts.

Salem police plan to use drones in coming months

The police department has put out purchase bids for its drone program which will help the department in search and rescue efforts.

Salem Police saw other agencies like Derry Police, New Hampshire Fish and Game and Southern New Hampshire Special Operations Unit successfully use drones in different scenarios like finding missing people, traffic accidents and crime scenes, Salem Capt. Jason Smith told The Eagle-Tribune in an email. The department saw their potential in Salem, he added.

They’ve worked out plans for the drone program for two and a half years which is being paid for with a federal grant.

The department was awarded a $42,913 grant in October 2021 by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Department of Homeland Security — and managed by the New Hampshire Department of Safety.

Smith sees the department using drones to assist largely with search and rescue, especially with missing persons and children.

He said Salem Police had to use Derry’s drone unit in a recent search effort for a missing person.

The department watched as New Hampshire Fish and Games successfully deployed drones to find a missing Hampstead man when foot and K-9 searches yielded no returns. Smith also noted Derry Police has effectively utilized its drone program for about a year.

With its own drone unit, Smith sees the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) being used to search specific spots where a missing person may end up and get a bird’s-eye view of locations hard to navigate on foot.

“We also anticipate the same for suspects who have fled the police and are likely to be found in a certain area,” Smith said.

The drones will also aid in nighttime searches. If Salem Police need to find people in the woods at night, they would need to use a helicopter with thermal equipment.

While the drones will assist with searches, they will also be used during large town events like the Fourth of July celebration or Salem Holiday Parade to monitor the crowds.

Smith said the drones will additionally serve with scene documentation of major car crashes or at a crime scene as well as tactical deployments for hostage situations or barricaded subjects.

“We envision all of these scenarios likely drone deployment situations,” Smith said. “A drone can also hover for many hours in one location during large public events to provide a supervisor or command center real time view on the size of crowd or parking and traffic issues.”

Salem Police plan to roll out the drone unit in three to six months.

The police department has selected members for its drone unit and conducted training for those members. Once the drones come in, Smith said the unit members will complete more training with the new acquisition. — Angelina Berube/Eagle-Tribune