Grossman & Ripps, PLLC

The permanent staff at Grossman Ripps & Albert bring over 100 years of experience working in the law to serving our clients? legal needs.

Dan Grossman
Daniel F. Grossman

Dan started the practice in 1982. He was graduated in 1971 from Brown University and in 1980, cum laude, from Vermont Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Vermont Law Review. Dan was admitted to practice in Vermont in 1980 and in New Hampshire in 1981. For over 30 years, one of the foundations of Dan?s practice has been real estate title searches, closings, purchases, and sales. The other main focus of the practice has been common-sense estate planning for middle-class clients and the administration of the estates of those same clients. Dan is a member of both the Vermont and New Hampshire Bar Associations.

Thetford, Vt., has been Dan?s home since 1972. He and his wife, Dana Cook Grossman, an editor and writer, raised their two now-grown daughters there, on a tree farm at the end of a dead-end dirt road; nowadays, they enjoy sharing their woods with their four grandchildren.

For over four decades, Dan and Dana have participated in the full range of small-town civic and volunteer activities. Dan served as president of the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society, as moderator of the Thetford School District, and as a Thetford Academy trustee. In addition, he led the creation of the 5-kilometer Woods Trail at Thetford Academy in 1990 and 1991 and for the next 13 years was the meet director of all the cross-country events held on it. In recognition of his role in establishing and perpetuating this major community resource, the trail was named in his honor in 2010. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of high school and college students and community members have walked, run, and skied on the Dan Grossman Woods Trail.

Dan now serves the region as a volunteer photographer ? taking 100,000 photographs a year for area nonprofits, from high school plays and sporting events to productions of the regional City Center Ballet Company to fundraisers that benefit the Children?s Hospital at Dartmouth and Dartmouth?s Norris Cotton Cancer Center.

Dan may be reached at dg@dg123.com.
Markell J. Ripps

Markell started working in the office upon her graduation in 2010 from Vermont Law School, after doing a third-year externship with the practice. She holds two degrees from the school ? a J.D., cum laude, and a master?s of environmental law and policy, magna cum laude. While at VLS, Markell was a staff editor and head notes editor of the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law and cochair of the school?s Arborist Society. She earned her undergraduate degree at Cornell University, majoring in natural resources and minoring in law and society. Markell is admitted to practice law in both Vermont and New Hampshire and is a member of the bar associations in both states.

From 2016 to 2021, Markell was a member of the board of directors of Vital Communities (VC), a nonprofit that links citizens, organizations, and municipalities to make the region a vital place to live, work, and play. She also participated in 2016 in VC?s Leadership Upper Valley Program ? an initiative designed to bring the region?s leaders together to learn about critical issues facing the Upper Valley ? and she was chosen as the class speaker at the culminating ceremony for that year?s program. From 2012 to 2019, she was active with an organization called Upper Valley Young Professionals (UVYP) and helped the organization gain its foundational footing. UVYP aims to connect young professionals with one another and with the community and still does so through the Upper Valley Business Alliance; she served on the UVYP board of directors for five years, including as its cochair and chair. Markell also enjoys staying connected with Vermont Law School and is currently a career services mentor and pro bono attorney for the Vermont Legal Food Hub.

Markell grew up on a small farm in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts and spent every summer at a family camp on a lake in New Hampshire. She now lives with her husband, Jack, and their young son in Thetford, Vt., where they garden and raise chickens, goats, alpacas, and sometimes sheep. Markell enjoys learning how to spin their wool and hopes one day to actually finish a spinning, weaving, or crocheting project.

Markell may be reached at mr@dg123.com.

Cara E. Albert

Cara joined the office in April 2017, after five years of experience practicing with two other Upper Valley law firms, and became a partner in the practice in 2021. A 2012 graduate of Vermont Law School, she earned both her J.D. and a master?s of environmental law and policy there. Her undergraduate degree is from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Penna., where she majored in policy management, lettered all four years in volleyball, and captained the volleyball team her senior year. During law school and college, she also held internships and externships with the U.S. Department of Justice; the Pennsylvania State Senate; and the Lebanon, N.H., District Court. She is now is admitted to practice in both Vermont and New Hampshire and is a member of the bar associations in both states.

She has a long commitment to community service as well. In college, she won Dickinson?s campus-wide leadership award for her role in helping to raise over $500,000 for a children?s literacy organization, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, and was a nominee for the national Jimmy Carter Service Award. Since moving to the Upper Valley, she has served on the board of the Carter Community Building in Lebanon and volunteered with the Upper Valley Humane Society. She is currently the president of the Grafton County, N.H., Bar Association.

Cara lives in Enfield, N.H., with her husband, Kevin, and their two young children. The family enjoys the outdoors ? especially hiking and boating on Mascoma Lake.

Cara may be reached at ca@dg123.com.

J. Christopher Burgess

Chris, a 2021 magna cum laude graduate of Vermont Law School, joined the practice shortly after his graduation. In law school, he was the business manager and a staff editor of the Vermont Law Review and a teaching assistant in the Legislation and Regulation class. He also worked while he was in law school for the South Royalton Legal Clinic, providing legal services primarily to underserved veterans; for a public affairs lobbying firm, the Necrason Group; and for Norwich University in Northfield, Vt., as a regulatory compliance intern. Chris is admitted to practice in Vermont and is soon to be admitted in New Hampshire.

He earned his undergraduate degree in 2012 from the University of Vermont, majoring in history and minoring in forestry. In the years between college and law school, he worked for a design-build construction firm in suburban Boston, where he grew up; in marketing and communications at the New England Aquarium in Boston; and at the Vermont building-supplies company Bethel Mills.

Chris and his partner, Laura Kamyk, live (with their two cats, Lily and Tully) in a circa 1805 house on the banks of the White River in South Royalton, Vt. They enjoy canoeing, hiking, camping, flyfishing, cooking, gardening, and skiing. Chris has a particular interest in New England history and in the identification of trees, wildflowers, ferns, birds, and other wildlife in the region.

Chris may be reached at cb@dg123.com.

Vanessa L. Kingsbury

Vanessa has worked in the legal field since taking a summer job here the summer after her sophomore year in high school, in 2004, and she continued working in the office every summer through the rest of high school and all through college. After graduating from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island in 2010 with a bachelor of science degree in paralegal studies, she worked for six years for two other Upper Valley law firms.

In 2016, she returned to the practice as a paralegal. She works on various aspects of real estate transactions, including sales, purchases, refinances, and home equity loans.

A lifelong resident of the Upper Valley, Vanessa was born and raised in Post Mills, Vt., and is a 2006 graduate of Thetford Academy. She played varsity sports all through high school and for several years coached the junior varsity girls? basketball team at Oxbow High School in Bradford, Vt. Vanessa now lives in Corinth, Vt., with her husband, Tad; their two young sons; and their dog, Felix.

Vanessa may be reached at vk@dg123.com.

Chelsea Mousley

Chelsea joined the practice in November 2017, after working for several years for two locally owned banks ? as a senior banker with Mascoma Savings Bank and as a personal banker with Merchants Bank. She also worked for the practice when she was in college, the summer before her senior year and during her winter break that year. Her current role in the practice includes assisting with real estate sales, estate planning, and estate administration.

She graduated with a bachelor of fine arts in photography, cum laude, from SUNY Plattsburgh in 2012 and is also a graduate of Thetford Academy.

Chelsea grew up in West Fairlee and Thetford and now lives in Corinth, Vt., with her husband, Tyler, and their two young daughters plus two dogs and two cats. Chelsea?s nonwork interests include photography, painting, gardening, and snowshoeing. She and Tyler are also involved in his family?s annual maple sugaring operation.

Chelsea may be reached at cm@dg123.com.
Molly E. Young

Molly joined the firm early in 2019 after working for 12 years for two other Upper Valley law firms that practice mainly in the area of litigation and family law. She proved to be a quick study regarding the real estate and estate planning areas of the law that make up the bulk of the Grossman Ripps & Albert practice.

She grew up in Norwich and is a graduate of Mid Vermont Christian School in Quechee, Vt. She and her husband live in Claremont, N.H., with her husband?s two children and their three dogs, Alvin, Daisy, and Kiva.

Molly may be reached at my@dg123.com.

Elizabeth Plamondon

Liz has worked in various legal support positions since 1998, when she was still in high school ? including with two other area lawyers and with one of the independent title abstracters that Grossman Ripps & Albert uses regularly. In her most recent position, she worked for four years with a lawyer in Bradford, Vt., who has since retired.

She joined our office as a paralegal in the summer of 2018. Her responsibilities here include processing title insurance policies, working on various aspects of real estate transactions, closing files after transactions are completed, answering the phones, and greeting clients arriving for appointments.

Liz grew up mostly in the Upper Valley and graduated from Thetford Academy in 2000. She now lives in Thetford and has a son at Thetford Academy and a daughter at Thetford Elementary School.

Locations	No. of Attorneys
Norwich,	5

Practice Areas	No. of Attorneys
Corporate - General	4
Real Estate	4
Trusts and Estates	8