The Law Offices Of
Cheney, Brock & Saudek, P.C.

Kimberly B. Cheney's litigation practice includes Personal Injury, Family Law, Criminal Law, Civil Rights, and Professional Regulation. He advises individuals and corporations in the field of labor management relations.

Mr. Cheney graduated from Yale College in 1957. He served in the U.S. Navy (Lt. U.S.N..R.) and returned to Yale Law School to earn an LLB in 1964. He practiced in Connecticut and then moved to Vermont where he served as an Assistant Attorney General, Education (1967-1968), was elected Washington County States Attorney and served from 1968-1972. He was elected Attorney General of the State and served from 1973 to 1975. He has held a variety of professional and civic posts, including Chairman, Vermont State Labor Relations Board (1978-1985); Panelist, American Arbitration Association, Labor (1980 to present); and Chair, Vermont Advisory Committee, U.S. Commission of Civil Rights. He is author of Labor and Employment Law in Vermont (Butterworth Legal Publishers, 360 pgs. 1994). He was instrumental in the reform of child custody criteria in 1986 and has written several family law articles appearing the Vermont Bar Journal. He is a member of the Vermont Bar Association and the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. He is admitted to practice in Vermont and Connecticut and before the United States Supreme Court.

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Richard Linton Brock has been practicing law in the central Vermont area since 1971, and as a principal in the firm since founding it in 1974. These are his areas of greatest experience: protection of property and property rights, organization, operation and dissolution of businesses, Vermont's credit unions and their law and government relations, legislative relations, and municipal law.

His experience in the protection of property rights includes buying, selling and leasing all kinds of real estate, and obtaining state and local permits. He works regularly with the Uniform Commercial Code. Protecting property rights also involves the planning and executing of estate plans and trusts, administering them as fiduciary, and litigating the issues which arise from them. He has tried will contest cases.

Mr. Brock has assisted the organization, operation or dissolution of hundreds of businesses. He has litigated the dissolution of numerous businesses.

Mr. Brock has been counsel to the Vermont Credit Union League since 1982. This primarily involves the relations of Vermont’s state and federal credit unions with their regulators and with the legislature, and providing ongoing operational advice sought by individual credit unions from the League. Mr. Brock also represents individual credit unions on an ongoing basis. Mr. Brock has appeared in the Vermont legislature for the Vermont Credit Union League most legislative days since 1992.

Mr. Brock has represented clients in the Vermont legislature since 1975. He has represented American Express in the legislature since 1986.

Mr. Brock served as municipal attorney for Montpelier and Elmore, was elected to two terms on the Montpelier City Council, and served on the Montpelier Planning Commission and other municipal boards.

Mr. Brock is admitted to all Vermont State and Federal courts, and to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. He has taught law related subjects for the Vermont Bar Association, the Vermont Association of Realtors, Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation, and the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. He was an Adjunct Professor at Woodbury College. He served on the Vermont Professional Conduct Board from 1982 through 1991. He is the author of Introductory Practice of Residential Real Estate Law - A Cookbook published by the Vermont Bar Association in 1996. He received his B.A. degree, with Honors, from the University of North Carolina in 1968 and was granted a J.D. by Columbia University in 1971.

Richard H. Saudek has represented the public, utilities and municipalities in energy, siting, tax, contract and valuation matters before courts and regulatory bodies. He has formed and represents Vermont “captive” insurance companies and several businesses. He handles government relations in the legislature and administrative and regulatory agencies on a range of subjects, including environmental and insurance-related matters. He represents municipalities in cases involving the siting of “wind farms” and in taxation cases involving hydroelectric plants.

Mr. Saudek joined the firm in January 1985. A graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan School of Law, Saudek was a partner in a New York City law firm before moving to Vermont. He served as Chairman of the Vermont Public Service Board and as the State’s first Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service. In those positions, he was involved in all aspects of utility regulation, from telephone and electric rate cases to siting cases and power contract negotiations. He was personally responsible for the State’s first power contracts with Hydro-Quebec and Ontario Hydro. After joining the firm, he was appointed by the Attorney General to represent the public in hearings on the Vermont Telecommunications Agreement and by the Governor to serve as Chair of the District V Environmental Commission. He is admitted to practice in the Federal and State Courts of Vermont and is a member of the Vermont Bar Association.

Mr. Saudek has served as a Trustee of Capital City Concerts, the Governor’s Institutes, the Vermont Council on the Arts, the Vermont Opera Theater, Inc. and the Barre Opera House, and as President of the Vermont Harvard-Radcliffe Club. He is a current Trustee of Marlboro College and the American Civil Liberties Union–Vermont and received the 2002 ACLU–Vermont Chase Award for Outstanding Cooperating Attorney.

David L. Grayck ’s practice is exclusively focused on land use permitting and litigation where he represents developers, municipalities and project opponents. He routinely appears before the Act 250 district environmental commissions, development review boards and the Environmental Court.

Before joining Cheney, Brock & Saudek in January of 2000, Mr. Grayck served as the Deputy Secretary of State (1999–2000), General Counsel to the Vermont Environmental Board and Water Resources Board (1997–1999) and Associate General Counsel to the Vermont Environmental Board (1993–1997).

Mr. Grayck received his J.D. degree from Boston University School of Law and his undergraduate degree, with highest honors, from Marlboro College. He began his legal career in 1990. Mr. Grayck is a former member of the Montpelier City Council and serves as a board member of Northeast Employment and Training, Inc. He is a Martindale-Hubbell BV rated environmental and land use lawyer. He is a member of the American and Vermont Bar Associations.

Chris Smart joined the firm as counsel in July 2005. He specializes in real estate (from simple matters to complex real property acquisitions, including valuations and due diligence). He has extensive experience, as well, with contracts, bankruptcy, foreclosures and other debt collection, ordinance preparation and civil litigation, and he has considerable and developing experience with environmental, zoning and land use matters.

Chris graduated as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar from Columbia Law School, J.D. 1988, where he was awarded the E.B. Convers Prize for the best original essay by a member of his graduating class and where he published an article in the Columbia Business Law Review on the societal effects of corporate takeovers. Chris received his undergraduate education from Arizona State University, B.S., Finance, Summa Cum Laude, 1985. As an undergraduate, he earned membership in the academic fraternities of Beta Gamma Sigma, Phi Kappa Phi and Alpha Lambda Delta and was appointed to represent the university on the Arizona Students Association.

After graduating from Columbia, Chris clerked for the Honorable James W. Meyers at the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of California and on the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel. He spent the next four years as an associate in the San Diego office of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, where he represented financial and corporate clients and creditors committees extensively in collection, foreclosure and bankruptcy matters. He spent the next seven years as an associate and counsel at the Washington D.C. office of Arent Fox, where he continued his bankruptcy and foreclosure practice while developing extensive transactional experience in the acquisition of real estate assets throughout the United States, representing private equity funds and investment banks (notably, Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds, sponsored by Goldman Sachs) in their investment activities. Since joining the firm, Chris has managed real estate due diligence for the acquisition of the Burke Mountain Ski Area, managed complicated litigation involving water rights, subdivisions, environmental and other real estate matters, and prepared municipal water, wastewater, zoning and cell tower ordinances.

Chris is a member of the American and Vermont Bar Associations and has earned admission to the State Bars of Vermont, California, Virginia and to the Bar of the District of Columbia. He has also been admitted to practice before the highest courts in each of those states, as well as the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States District Courts for the District of Arizona, the Central, Eastern and Southern Districts of California, and the District of Maryland, and the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. He has conducted professional seminars on bankruptcy, foreclosures and title insurance.

Chris served two years on the Montpelier City Council and currently serves as a commissioner on the Montpelier Historic Preservation Commission and a director on the Montpelier Heritage Group, engaging in land use advocacy. He has co-chaired a monthly discussion group at Montpelier's Kellogg-Hubbard Library since 2001. He has completed locally-recognized renovations of his old home and an apartment building, which he manages.

Zachary K. Griefen joined the firm as associate counsel in September 2007. Prior to joining Cheney, Brock & Saudek, he served as the senior judicial law clerk for the Honorable Thomas Durkin and the Honorable Merideth Wright at the Vermont Environmental Court. The Vermont Environmental Court has broad jurisdiction over environmental matters, hearing appeals from municipal boards and commissions, appeals from Act 250 decisions, and Agency of Natural Resources, Natural Resource Board, and municipal enforcement cases.

Zak graduated from Vermont Law School in 2005, where he earned a J.D., cum laude, and a Master of Studies in Environmental Law, magna cum laude. He received his undergraduate degree, cum laude, from the University of New Mexico in 2002. During law school, he was the Vermont Editor of the Vermont Law Review and a student clinician at the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic. In 2004 he worked as a summer associate at the Conservation Law Foundation.

Zak Griefen is a member of the Vermont and American Bar Associations and is admitted to practice law in Vermont and Massachusetts. Zak is an avid angler and is particularly interested in protecting healthy streams and promoting sustainable land use. He lives with his wife Amé and their two children in Montpelier.