How do judges of the Vermont Supreme Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Vermont Supreme Court / Joined 2005 / Served to 2013

Brian L. Burgess

Justice, Vermont Supreme Court

Brian L. Burgess was a Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, who joined the court in 2005. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1951 · age 75
Tenure: 2005–2013 · 8 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2005	Vermont Supreme Court	–	–

Education

College of the Holy Cross
Villanova University

Judicial Record

In our data, Burgess authored 137 published opinions for the court (2006–2013), plus 18 dissents and 16 concurrences. Most cited: Colby v. Umbrella, Inc. (247 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 133 of these were attributed to Burgess by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2008	Colby v. Umbrella, Inc.· Dissent†	2008 VT 20	247
2008	In Re Appeal of JAM Golf, LLC†	2008 VT 110	74
2010	In Re Verizon Wireless Barton Permit	2010 VT 62	72
2011	In re R.W. and N.W.†	191 Vt. 108	71
2011	U.S. Bank National Ass'n v. Kimball†	190 Vt. 210	71
2009	Follo v. Florindo†	2009 VT 11	69
2008	State v. Brillon· Dissent†	2008 VT 35	69
2011	Zorn v. Smith	2011 VT 10	68
2011	US BANK NAT. ASS'N v. Kimball	2011 VT 81	53
2008	In re Pierce Subdivision Application†	184 Vt. 365	43
2009	In Re Miller· Dissent†	2009 VT 36	42
2010	Clayton v. Unsworth	2010 VT 84	39
2008	Smith v. Desautels· Concurrence†	2008 VT 17	38
2008	Raynes v. Rogers· Dissent†	2008 VT 52	36
2010	Fly Fish Vermont, Inc. v. Chapin Hill Estates, Inc.†	2010 VT 33	35

Showing the 15 most-cited of 171 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Vermont Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court was Brian L. Burgess on?: Brian L. Burgess was a Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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8 years on the Vermont Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).