Mike was born on February 2, 1951 in Detroit, Michigan and grew up in Franklin, one of the small towns near Detroit. He attended high school at Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He then attended Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography, magna cum laude, in 1973. He then attended the University Michigan Law School, received the Book Award (the highest grade in the class) in Enterprise Organization (agency, partnerships, corporations, and the like), and graduated in 1976.
Immediately following graduation in 1976, he began working at Brown & Cahill, which eventually morphed into Cahill, Gawne, Miller & Manahan, P.C.. He was admitted to practice in all courts in Vermont, both state and federal, later and began his law practice.

Mike’s primary focus during his years of practice as a licensed attorney was in the representation of individuals and municipalities and assisting the firm’s clients with estate and business planning and real estate transactions. His primary trial practice focused on contract disputes, property disputes, and estate litigation as well as many appeals to the Vermont Supreme Court.

Mike served on the Allocations Committee of the Vermont State Bar Association and was also appointed by the Vermont Supreme Court to sit on the Probate Rules Committee for several years. In the local Franklin-Grand Isle Counties Bar Association, he served as Chairman of the Probate Bench-Bar Committee and as Treasurer of the organization. He has previously been a member of the Zoning Board of Adjustment of the City of St. Albans and has been a member of the City’s Planning Commission since 2014.

Mike has also been involved with several non-profit corporations located in St. Albans area, such as Franklin County Home Health, Club Respite (now known as Carepartners Adult Day Care Center), Hard’ack Recreational Facility, and now with the St. Albans Cemetery Association which owns and operates Greenwood Cemetery.

In 2025, Mike decided that after nearly 50 years of active practice as a licensed attorney, it was time to slow down and smell the roses. Since July 1, 2025, he joins Joe Cahill in working at Cahill, Gawne, Miller & Manahan, P.C. as a part-time legal assistant to Attorney Megan Manahan Bliss in providing continued legal services to our valued clients.

Mike and his wife, Daphne, have been married since 1974 and reside in St. Albans City. They have two children, a daughter, Nina, an attorney in Denver, Colorado, and a son, Peter, a curator at the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts. Both are married, and Mike and Daphne now have five grandchildren.