Biz People

Thursday, October 1, 2009

NEW EMPLOYEE. Law firm Upton & Hatfield LLP, announced that attorney Marilyn Billings McNamara has joined the firm.

A domestic relations lawyer with more than 30 years of experience in all aspects of the field, McNamara serves as a director of the New Hampshire Bar Foundation and sits on the Board of Bar Governors of the New Hampshire Bar Association. President-elect of the New Hampshire Bar Association, she has written on legal issues pertaining to children, ethics, professionalism and domestic relations practice and was recently selected to author a chapter on children and the law for an upcoming publication on New Hampshire domestic relations practice and procedure.

McNamara’s service to New Hampshire has also included membership on the Judicial Council, Pro Se Task Force Study Group and Access to Justice Commission. Following graduation from Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, she co-founded the Family and Housing Law Clinic (now the Civil Clinic) at the center and served as co-director and instructor for the clinic’s first year.

In addition to her years of private practice in Lebanon, she served for eight years as the executive director of the Legal Advice and Referral Center, a Concord-based federally funded poverty law program providing family and housing law advice, counsel and referral services to low-income clients.

A recipient of the L. Jonathan Ross Award for outstanding commitment to legal services for the poor, McNamara was also a member of the first Judicial Selection Commission established in New Hampshire.

She is currently an adjunct instructor in family law for the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program at Pierce and participates in the Practical Skills Family Law Workshop presented twice yearly to newly admitted members of the New Hampshire Bar Association.

McNamara serves on the Board of Directors of Andy’s Summer Playhouse in Wilton, a theater program producing original plays with and for children ages 8 through 18. McNamara lives in Amherst.