Main Street Law, LLP

Where the firm works and who it serves

The firm is based in Montpelier, Vermont, and states that it was founded in 1980. That places its work in the state across more than four decades. It says it serves public entities, businesses, non-profits, and individuals throughout Vermont.

That mix is worth pausing on. Plenty of small-state firms pick a lane: either private clients or government work. This one lists both. In my opinion, a practice that carries municipal clients alongside individuals tends to see a wide slice of how state law actually plays out day to day.

The range of practice areas

For a firm of its size, the list of areas runs long. On the private side it handles commercial and property law, commercial litigation, real estate, employment law, civil rights, personal injury, workers' compensation, and estate planning and administration.

The firm also lists Social Security disability, civil litigation, foreclosure, and patents and trademarks. It offers arbitration and mediation services, and it notes that its attorneys include trained Vermont foreclosure mediators. That last detail is a small but telling one. It points to work done inside the state's own dispute process rather than around it.

Public sector and education work

A defined part of the practice is built for municipalities and school districts. The firm describes work on collective bargaining, labor litigation, and policy development. It also lists public records and open meeting laws, and land use planning.

That is a specific body of law, and few general firms keep it in stock. Towns and school boards deal with rules that private clients rarely touch. A firm that names this work is signalling it does the reading these clients need.

Farm law and foreclosure

Vermont is a farming state, and the firm reflects that. It lists farm law, including farm succession planning and estate planning for farmers. This reads as a practice shaped by where it sits rather than a menu copied from somewhere larger.

The foreclosure work sits nearby. With attorneys trained as state foreclosure mediators, the firm can act inside that process as well as advise on it. For a rural client, having both in one place has plain value.

How the team is built

The firm names two partners and a group of attorneys serving Of Counsel. A small partner core with experienced counsel around it is a common shape among long-standing regional firms, and it usually points to stability.

The partners

Bernard D. Lambek is a partner. Before law, he worked as an elementary school teacher for five years, then attended Yale Law School. That is an unusual road into practice, and it is the kind of background that tends to make a person good at explaining things.

Stephen L. Cusick is the other named partner. He joined the firm as an associate in 2004 and has stayed with it since. A lawyer who came up inside the same firm often carries its institutional memory.

Of Counsel

The Of Counsel group brings a range of backgrounds. Philip H. Zalinger Jr. concentrates on commercial transactions, financing, and business planning. J. Scott Cameron served as Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Personnel beginning in January 1985. That is public-sector experience of exactly the kind the firm's municipal and employment work draws on.

Robert Halpert has been engaged in the general practice of law in Montpelier. Brian Bailey was born and raised in Chicago. Andrew Marchev is the most recent addition the site names, having joined as Of Counsel in 2024. As a reviewer, I read a firm still adding counsel after four decades as a sign of continuity rather than wind-down.

What the public record shows

The firm reports that it carries an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell. That rating draws on peer and judicial review, and the firm lists it on its home page. I cannot verify it from this desk, so I note it as the firm states it.

Past that, the public facts are modest. The site does not publish case results, client counts, or award lists, and this review adds none. What it does show is a long-running Vermont firm with a clear set of practice areas and a named group of attorneys standing behind them.

A reviewer's read

Main Street Law fits the profile of a settled general-practice firm serving one state. On the public record, its strengths are breadth of subject matter and a public-sector line that many firms skip. The bios on the site run short, so law schools and admission dates for most of the attorneys are not listed. A prospective client who wants those details would need to ask.

The useful signal here is fit. A town facing a labor matter, a farm family planning succession, a business owner in a commercial dispute, or an individual with a workers' compensation claim will each find a matching area in this one office. The firm has served that spread since 1980, and it keeps the same Main Street footing today.