Incoming MCBA president Bradley Kammholz sets sights on bringing people back together

Incoming Monroe County Bar Association President Bradley P. Kammholz plans to focus on helping members reconnect when he officially takes over the leadership role on July 1.

And to help kick start the effort, the organization will hold an in-person officer installation event from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., June 23, at Ellison Park.

“The idea isn’t so much to install the officers, it’s to bring everybody back together,” said Kammholz, 57, a partner at Kammholz Rossi PLLC.

Kammholz serves on the New York State Grievance Committee for the Seventh Judicial District and is a member of the board of directors for the state Academy of Trial Lawyers. He also is past president of The Foundation of the Monroe County Bar.

He has received various honors throughout his career, including the 2011 Rochester Leaders in the Law Award, the 2015 Humanitarian Award from the Foundation of the Monroe County Bar, the 40 under 40 Award from the Rochester Business Journal, the President’s Award from the Monroe County Bar Association and the Young Lawyer of the Year Award from the New York State Bar Association.

Stepping into the leadership role is a natural progression for Kammholz, who said he has benefited greatly from membership in the Bar Association over the years.

“I’ve been a part of the Bar Association ever since I was admitted and the Bar Association has really given me quite a bit of balance in my career. It has introduced me to people, it’s helped me out with different issues and it’s given me chances to get involved in different ways,” he said. “So when I had the opportunity to lead that organization that really has been such a big part of my professional life, that’s why I wanted to do it.”

Kammholz said his goals in the coming year can be summed up in one word: relationships.

“As an old friend told me, being a lawyer is all about relationships. Relationships with clients and other lawyers and judges and the community,” he said.

And he is looking forward to working on helping fellow lawyers with relationships as the COVID-19 pandemic winds down.

“We’re talking about the Bar’s relationship with (the Greater Rochester Association of Women Attorneys) and the Rochester Black Bar Association; we’re talking about the Bar’s relationship with firms and government offices; and we’re also just talking about helping everybody with all of their individual relationships,” he said.

Even before the pandemic, the practice of law had become an isolating activity with individuals working mainly alone at their computers, Kammholz said.

“Then COVID comes along and we’re isolated a little more, so we really want to focus on getting people back together to take care of each other,” he said.

Kammholz said he is looking forward to creating more social and networking opportunities for members, creating programs to develop leadership skills and helping the newest and most experienced lawyers with the issues they face and continue to focus on health and well being and anti-racism efforts.

Originally from Washington, D.C., Kammholz spent summers as a child at an aunt’s farm in Gates and his grandmother’s cottage on Conesus Lake. So, after graduating from Boston University School of Law in 1990, he was drawn to the Rochester area to start his career.

Kammholz started out as an associate at Phillips Lytle LLP, where he spent about six years. He worked with attorney A. Vincent Buzard for a year, and then spent over seven years at Faraci Lange LLP, until he left as a partner in 2005 to start his own firm.

Attorney Joseph A. Rossi joined him in 2012 and they became partners in 2019.

“He’s one of the most compassionate and caring people that I know and that I’ve ever worked with,” Rossi said. “He puts himself and any financial gain or business consideration to the side when it comes to somebody else. He would give you the shirt off his back and he would go above and beyond regardless of what it meant would come to him.”

Kammholz was inspired by his grandfather, who had a law firm in Chicago, with an office in Washington, D.C., where Kammholz worked while in high school and college as a messenger, librarian and paralegal.

“I saw the lawyers do their thing and I thought, ‘I like this putting together a cogent argument kind of thing,’” he said,

Kammholz’s grandfather also left a large law firm where he had become a partner to start his own practice.
“I have to believe that I’ve got a little bit of his blood in me. That made me kind of want to go and do my own thing,” he said.

Kammholz said he left Faraci Lange with “hugs and handshakes,” and he fondly recalls the mentorship of Faraci Lange partner Brian Zorn.

“Among the many attributes that will help Brad lead the MCBA are his extensive experience and success in other leadership positions, his deep commitment to the MCBA and our legal community and, perhaps most importantly, how much he relishes the opportunity to help people,” Zorn said. “These attributes have led him to devote countless hours in other leadership positions that will provide a deep and solid foundation for his MCBA presidency.”

[email protected] / (585) 232-2035

Bradley P. Kammholz

Title: Founding partner of Kammholz Rossi PLLC

Residence: Perinton

Age: 57

Education: Bachelor’s degree, accounting, 1987, University of Maryland, College Park; juris doctor, 1990, Boston University School of Law

Family: Wife, Karen; twin 18-year-old children, Maddie and Brennan

Hobbies: Golf, gardening, grilling, water skiing

Quote: “As an old friend told me, being a lawyer is all about relationships.”