Attorneys
Phil Utter
About Phil
Phil was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. He grew up playing sports at school and in the neighborhood, including becoming an expert skater on a hockey rink in his parents’ backyard that froze over each winter. Like his father before him (and his sons after him), Phil spent the summers of his youth attending and working for the family summer camp, Cragged Mountain Farm, in Freedom, NH. He especially loved being a leader for the camp’s annual multi-week canoe expeditions to the rivers and lakes of northern Maine. He graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1982 and attended American University Washington College of Law, where he graduated in 1985.
Phil was hired by New Hampshire Public Defender and began representing indigent defendants in the criminal justice system after passing the New Hampshire bar in the summer of 1985. Phil worked for New Hampshire Public Defender for nine years, where he honed his skills as a litigator. He then started a law firm, Green & Utter, with Cathy Green in Manchester in 1994. Green & Utter became one of the premier criminal defense firms in the state, and Phil represented many high-profile defendants in high stakes situations. He has been named to many “Super Lawyers” and “Best Lawyers” lists. Phil and Cathy wound down the firm in 2018 and Phil has been working on his own since then including work as a trustee for high value New Hampshire family trusts and in a volunteer capacity on the New Hampshire Judicial Council.
Phil lives in Exeter with his wife, Christy, and, like Nick, enjoys spending his free time doing work up at the family farm in Freedom. He is the Treasurer of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry in Exeter and, in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s was President of the Exeter Youth Soccer Association for many years.
Education
B.A., University of Rhode Island, 1982
J.D., American University Washington College of Law, 1985
Nick Utter
About Nick
Nick was born in Portsmouth and grew up in Exeter, where he attended Exeter High School and graduated in 2008. He was a member of three of Exeter High’s high-achieving 2000s soccer teams and Nick’s best friends, to this day, are from the state championship winning team of 2006. Nick went on to graduate from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2012 with a B.S. in Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance. He hiked the New Zealand equivalent of the Appalachian Trail, Te Araroa, in 2012-13 and was one of the first 50 people to ever complete the entire 1,900-mile trail.
Nick then spent a year apprenticing at an educational organic farm, The Farm School, in Athol, MA, where he learned how to grow food, take care of livestock, and manage a farm. For the next seven years, Nick operated a farm out of the family summer camp property in Freedom where he primarily focused on producing and selling maple syrup. During the COVID business slowdown, he reconsidered his career options and made the decision to go to law school.
Nick studied at Boston University School of Law and graduated in May 2024. At school Nick focused on learning as much as he could about how the law intersects with the financial system both from a macro-perspective – taking courses on international economic law, global money, corporations, and federal taxation – and a micro-perspective, with courses on bankruptcy, contract drafting, trusts and estates, and the estate and gift tax. He was an Articles Editor for the Boston University International Law Journal and his Note, Air Canada, Venezuela, and Financial Instability: How Free Transfer Provisions Prevent BITs From Serving Their Purpose, was published in the Summer 2024 edition of the journal. The Note considers how specific laws can constrain a country’s financial autonomy and was inspired by Nick’s fascination with the different but intertwined legal, political, and economic contexts countries operated under during the COVID financial crisis.
He worked for a boutique trusts and estates firm during law school in addition to spending a summer working for the New Hampshire Public Defender.
Since graduation, Nick has passed the New Hampshire bar and has been working with individuals and families to help them craft their estate plans.
Nick lives in Portsmouth with his lovely girlfriend and is an avid hiker and skier. He spends much of his free time staying busy up on the family farm where he takes care of a large garden, many blueberry bushes and fruit trees, his chainsaw, and a tractor that always need attention. He is also making progress on building an off-grid cabin.
Education
B.S., University of Colorado, Boulder, 2012
J.D., Boston University School of Law, 2024