With 33 attorneys, Manchester’s oldest law firm is big enough to be among the top 10 largest legal practices in the state, but it’s nowhere near the biggest or the best known.
That’s perfectly fine with Todd Hathaway, who joined Wadleigh, Starr & Peters 28 years ago. The firm celebrated its 125th anniversary this fall with an event for close clients but not much hoopla.
“We probably have one of the smallest marketing budgets in the city, and that’s kind of the way we like it,” Hathaway says. “The firm has done well for all these many years because of great word of mouth.”
The firm’s practice includes defense of professional liability and personal injury matters, municipal and education law, commercial and construction litigation, real estate, bonding, and other transactional work, land use litigation, trust and estate planning, criminal defense, family law and appellate work.
Founding partners David Taggart and George Bingham established Wadleigh, Starr & Peters in 1899 at the Kennard Building on 1008 Elm St. Since 1958, the firm has been headquartered at 95 Market Street.
Hathaway is still a relative newbie at the firm even though it’s the only job he’s ever had. Attorneys Pauline Desfosses and Wendy Daily celebrated 50 years with the firm in 2024. Hathaway is among several attorneys who have been with the firm more than 25.
“We just got some incredibly dedicated people, really at top of their game. They treat the clients like they’re family. I think that’s one of the reasons folks have stuck with us all these years,” Hathaway says.
Attorney Bill “Tuck” Tucker was working from home while recovering from knee surgery during our interview over Zoom. Otherwise, he would have been at the office as usual just like he’s done since 1969.
“The culture of the firm is one thing we pride ourselves on,” says Tucker, who focuses his practice on tax-exempt financing, land use and zoning, and commercial real estate transactions. “We have very little partner turnover. Once a lawyer becomes a partner at the firm, they seldom leave.”
In its early years, Wadleigh, Starr & Peters represented families who worked in the textile mills of Southern New Hampshire and also did work with the railroads and the shoe industry. Its attorneys have been appointed judges to every level of court in the Granite State and served as attorneys general in New Hampshire.
Winthrop Wadleigh was a founding member of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union, and William Starr represented numerous local, national and international corporations, the firm noted in a press release announcing its 125th anniversary. Philip G. Peters, recognized as one of the most skilled civil jury trial attorneys of his time, served as a judge in the Auburn District Court.
Since 1958, Wadleigh, Starr & Peters has been headquartered at 95 Market St. in Manchester. The firm was founded in 1899. (Photo courtesy of Wadleigh, Starr & Peters)
Most of the firm’s attorneys practice only in New Hampshire, but they take on national and international clients who have a “New Hampshire problem,” says Hathaway, who defends health care providers and others in personal injury litigation. The firm is a member of ALFA International, a global network of 145 independent law firms, including 80 in the U.S.
“We service a lot of the big major companies and folks who have business in New Hampshire, in addition to banks, financial institutions, insurance companies,” he says. “We do a lot of health care and medical malpractice work here. And all of the national insurers come to us with their problems.”
Through the decades, the firm has adapted its practice areas to meet the times, Tucker notes.
“Back when I started, we represented a handful of the major insurance companies: New England Life, John Hancock, Metropolitan, Prudential, because they were the ones that were doing the substantial major lending in the state,” he says.
“Before branch banking was allowed, you could only have a branch in the city that you were organized in and in any surrounding towns,” Tucker recalls. “That didn’t change until the mid to late ‘70s when the Legislature expanded that. Most of your major lending was done by life insurance companies because the banks were too small to have the lending capability.”
The firm continues to work on real estate transactions, which has been a long part of its history.
“We’ve represented a substantial number of the major development projects in the state over the years,” Tucker says, including New England Development, which developed the Mall of New Hampshire in Manchester, Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua and the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem.
While the firm’s worth ethic hasn’t changed over the years, it’s ridden a long wave of technological change, from manual typewriters to artificial intelligence.
“When I first started, there was no electronic typing. It was the old-fashioned typewriters with carbon paper,” Tucker says. If there was a mistake on a 50-page document, it was time to cut and paste. “You’d insert a paragraph where there was a change, as opposed to having to type the page all over again.”
By the time Hathaway joined in 1996, the technology had moved forward a bit. Attorneys shared a single internet connection and took turns using it to do their research: “When I started, we had one computer that was connected to the outside world.”
