Jim Fry

Professor Jim Fry is in his twenty third year of teaching law at Champlain College [however he doesn’t look that old]. His courses are mostly Legal Research, Legal Writing and Analysis, and Business Law although he has been asked on occasion to teach U.S. Constitutional Law and History. He received his B.A. degree in History from Siena College in Loudonville, New York and his M.A.T. in History from the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. His J.D. was earned at the Columbus School of Law of Catholic University in Washington, D.C. He practiced law full time from 1984 until 1992 and has managed to maintain a small practice since teaching full time at Champlain. He was also the adjunct Business Law Professor at Trinity College in Burlington from 1987 until 2000.

While at Siena he was a member of Phi Alpha Theta [the Nation History Honor Society], served at an undergraduate resident assistant, and was station manager and on air personality for the College’s radio station, WVCR, as well as at both WABY in Albany and WKAJ in Saratoga Springs. He worked his way through graduate school at UVM serving as a graduate resident advisor and area coordinator in the University’s resident hall system. At Catholic University he served as a Teaching Assistant to first year night students in Legal Research, Writing and Analysis, was desk supervisor of the White Law Library and clerked for Gleason and Flynn in Rockville, Maryland. Prior to attending law school Jim was Director of Student Financial Aid at Johnson State College, the Community College of Vermont and the Assistant Director of Financial Aid at the University of Vermont.

Outside of teaching and practicing law he has served for twelve years as the public-at-large member of the association accrediting college programs in hospitality and hotel management, and has served as Blood Services Chairman for the Northern Vermont Chapter of the American Red Cross. He is a member of the Vermont Historical Society and the Vermont Cemetery Association.

In his spare time he is an avid sailor, having raced twice in Antigua Race Week, participated in races off Newport Rhode Island and has sailed the New England coast, the Chesapeake Bay and extensively on Lake Champlain. Photography is his passion as is spending time in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

Things you might not know about him:

• Cindy Lauper was in the first class he taught at Johnson State College (side image)
• The first two years as resident advisor at UVM he was in charge of seventy freshman students housed at the Sheraton Motor Inn [where he also worked the front desk, bartended, and occasionally did the night audit]
• He knew Walter Matthau personally;
• While in Washington he dated the administrative assistant to the White House Chief of Staff and regularly got to use the presidential box at the Kennedy Center;
• He played the “Scarecrow” in the Wizard of Oz;
• He was at one time an Assistant Funeral Director;
• He has a passion for the history of the French and Indian War and is an annual attendee of the College of the Seven Years War at Fort Ticonderoga and donates toward the scholarships awarded to attending high school history teachers;
• In October of 2007 he was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court (image below)

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