A law firm that has provided legal services to Easton for the last 20 years has notified the town it will no longer represent it.
Ira Bloom, a senior law partner with Berchem Moses PC, communicated the resignation in a Dec. 4 letter, stating that the professional standards of municipal legal representation offered by the firm are “not compatible” with the goals of Easton’s recently elected Republican First Selectman Daniel Lent.
The Westport-based firm has served as Easton’s legal counsel for more than two decades, working under three Republican and one Democratic administration. Last year, the Board of Selectmen voted to hire Bloom on a $4,000-a-month retainer, a move driven in part by rising legal fees tied to land-use issues. Bloom serves several municipalities and recently received the Marvin J. Glink Private Practice Local Government Attorney Award from the International Municipal Lawyers Association.
The resignation follows a meeting on Nov. 24 between Bloom and Lent, during which they discussed Lent’s ex officio role, his participation in land use meetings, hiring of experts, land use staffing needs, and enforcement. The letter also noted subsequent texts and emails from Lent “with requests for legal services, including a new Conn. Gen. Stat. Section 8-30g application and an ordinance apparently proposed by an Easton resident.”
“This week I have reviewed all of this with several of my colleagues at the firm. We have concluded that the goals of your recently concluded and successful election as Easton’s First Selectman are not compatible with the standards of municipal legal representation that we offer at Berchem Moses P.C. Therefore, the firm will be resigning as the designated town attorney for Easton, a designation that commenced in July 2025,” Bloom stated in the letter.
The resignation takes effect on February 6, 2026. The firm will not file new lawsuits on behalf of Easton and has requested that the town retain alternate counsel if any lawsuits are brought against it, according to the letter.
The firm’s resignation comes as two housing development applications are before land use boards. An affordable housing development is proposed on Plumtree Lane that spans land in Easton and Trumbull, while the Saddle Ridge application would build about 26 houses on a parcel of land between Sport Hill Road and Cedar Hill Road. Since taking office on Nov. 11, Lent has spoken as an ex officio member offering his opinions on applications and independent civil engineering studies on those applications and other proposals.
Lent framed the firm’s abrupt departure as “a very good thing for the town” at a Dec. 9 special Board of Selectmen meeting called to discuss the firm’s resignation.
He questioned the firm’s performance in litigating cases and said the firm’s financial retainer agreement with Bloom had “shortcomings” and hasn’t been financially viable. He cited $66,000 of the current fiscal year’s $100,000 legal budget had already been spent by October, before his term began.
Lent also referenced a $150,000 appropriation to supplement the legal budget, scheduled for a resident vote at a Special Town Meeting on Dec. 10. The appropriation failed 60-57 after residents voted to postpone the decision indefinitely. Selectman Nick D’Addario supported the postponement, arguing the Board of Selectmen needed time to evaluate legal options following Berchem Moses’ resignation.
“We were going to have to examine this relationship from a financial modeling standpoint and whether it’s even viable financially, anyway,” Lent said. “So I think this is actually helpful because rather than having to go through that process they voluntarily decided to withdraw. Because the simple fact of the matter is that the expenses that we’ve incurred doing what I’ll call this experiment haven’t been financially viable.”
Lent also framed the firm’s departure as part of the transition to his new administration. Lent, a patent attorney, won the Nov. 4 municipal election by five votes over D’Addario after a recount.
“I mean, one of the reasons I got elected was to try to keep the town from constantly getting into lawsuits and losing,” said Lent, who has sued the town’s land use boards.
In July 2024, Lent filed a lawsuit against the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Planning and Zoning Commission, challenging a special permit granted to a local cabinet maker to relocate his business from his home to a barn on Sport Hill Road. A Superior Court judge dismissed the case.
D’Addario said the firm’s withdrawal was “sudden and unusual” and said the resignation was not financially motivated.
“The Board of Selectmen should begin a transparent, careful process to select new counsel,” he said. “For the pending development matters, we should retain experienced attorneys to protect the town’s interests and preserve Easton’s rural character.”
Selectman Kristi Sogofsky said during the Board of Selectmen meeting that “we need to have some sort of fee schedules and attorneys that we’ve all vetted and gone through and approved, so we’re not scrambling at the last minute and holding meetings in the middle of the day to seek out representation for meetings that are occurring at night.” She suggested that the town should have “a go-to list of people that we’re all comfortable with, depending on what the issue is.”
