Middlebury Office
802-388-6356
Contact Ellen Fallon

Ellen began her practice with Langrock Sperry & Wool in 1977 as its first female associate and in 1980 became its first female partner. In 1985, she was tapped by Governor Madeleine M. Kunin to serve as Counsel to the Governor, where her areas of responsibility included public utilities, banking and insurance, human services, and education. Since returning to the firm in 1987, Ellen’s practice has spanned transactional and litigation matters in a broad range of subject areas.

The core of her current practice consists of working with businesses and organizations to prevent and assess risks and to resolve disputes efficiently, through negotiation, mediation, arbitration, or litigation. She brings to bear her long-term experience working with CEOs and other managers of corporations, non-profit organizations, and government entities, to determine and pursue a course of action that permits a focus on core operations with limited disruption by legal issues. A significant portion of her work has involved organizations facing major financial or other challenges, requiring a “triage” relationship between company officials and counsel. The same skills have been applied to individuals facing business or personal difficulties. In an increasingly impersonal world, Ellen has retained her commitment to strong client relationships, believing that good counsel should provide not only experience and expertise but also loyalty, judgment, knowledge of the client’s business, and a willingness to communicate legal risks and options in a direct and straightforward manner.

In addition to assisting clients facing disputes, Ellen is frequently called upon to draft a wide range of business documents, including employment policies and handbooks; non-disclosure, non-compete, and severance agreements; supply contracts; shareholder agreements; release and indemnity agreements; construction contracts and subcontracts; and independent contractor agreements. She also provides sexual harassment training and training for supervisors on a variety of human resources issues.

Ellen has a keen professional and personal interest in education and is currently counsel to several private colleges and schools in Vermont, notably Bennington College, for which she managed a major retrenchment and multi-party litigation. Other representative clients include Burton Snowboards, Bread Loaf Corporation, Dell Computer Corporation, and numerous other large and small businesses, non-profit organizations, and individuals.

Ellen is often asked to serve as a mediator for matters in state and federal courts and has been retained to undertake internal investigations for government entities. She is a frequent speaker on a broad variety of topics, including trial practice, employment law, municipal law, education law, equine law and legal ethics.

Public service has been a strong and consistent part of Ellen’s professional life. She was appointed by Governor Richard Snelling to the State Board of Mental Health. She was twice appointed by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy to Federal Judicial Nominating Advisory Commissions, and was appointed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to the Committee on Admissions and Grievances and to the Task Force on Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Fairness. She has been appointed to numerous Vermont Supreme Court and bar committees, through which she has pursued her interests in lawyer professionalism, access to justice, and judicial performance evaluation. She is a member of the Vermont Business Roundtable and the Vermont Women’s Forum.

Ellen was president of the Vermont Bar Association in 1987-88 and served in the American Bar Association House of Delegates from 1989 until 1998. In 1998 she became the first woman Fellow of the American Bar Foundation from Vermont. In 1999 Ellen was honored by the Governor’s Commission on Women with the “Making a Difference for Women” award.

Ellen currently divides her time between the firm’s Middlebury and Burlington offices and lives in Hinesburg with her husband and daughter. Her personal passion is dressage competition on her Morgan horse, and she enjoys summers living on the shores of Lake Champlain.