File #4532: "su-1886.pdf"

SUFFOLK LAW
ALUMNI MAGAZINE

02 A MESSAGE FROM DEAN PERLMAN 03 SUFFOLK LAW BY THE
NUMBERS
04
NATIONAL
HONORS
FOR
CIVIC-MINDED
STUDENT
04 FAIR HOUSING PROGRAM GETS $1M GRANT 04 THE PEW
CHARITABLE TRUSTS TURNS TO SUFFOLK 05 ALUMNA DESIGNS
DIVERSIONARY PROGRAMS APP 05 NEW DEGREE PROGRAM FOR LIFE
SCIENCES LAW 05 PROFESSOR EARNS ABA LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
06 NEW LAW FACULTY ON ISSUES THAT MATTER 08 LEGAL 500 RECOGNIZES
RECENT GRADUATE 08 RECOGNITION FROM THE NATIONAL BLACK PRE-LAW
CONFERENCE 08 SUFFOLK LAW HELPS LAUNCH NATIONAL POLICING
09
MICHAEL
J.
NICHOLSON:
MAYOR
A SAGE CONSORTIUM

BY DAY, LAW STUDENT BY
NIGHT 10
FROM
SUFFOLK LAW
DEA
STUDENT
WINS PATENT
A W A R D
11 NEW GROUP
ASSISTS FIRST
-GEN STUDENTS
12 CLOSING
COVID-19
35
JUSTICE GAP
PHD’S
12 NY TIMES
ENROLLED AT
HIGHLIGHTS
SUFFOLK L
EVICTION RELIEF
13 A QUICK
13
CLINICS FORGE
TURN T O W A R D
AHEAD IN FACE OF PANDEMIC
THE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM
13 EMERGENCY FUND HELPS
STUDENTS IMPACTED BY COVID
14 SERGE GEORGES JR. NOMINATED TO SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT
17 BRETT FREEDMAN ADVISES THE SSCI 18 REGINA HOLLOWAY’S CAREER
IN POLICE OVERSIGHT TAKES A NEW TURN 19 THREE ALUMNI MAKE $1M
PLEDGES IN SINGLE YEAR 20 ALL RISE: CELEBRATING SUFFOLK LAW’S FEMALE
LEADERS 21 ALUMNI CONTRIBUTIONS WITH PERSONAL MEANING 21 ERNST
GUERRIER PAYS IT FORWARD 22 DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION AT SUFFOLK
LAW 25 TRANSACTIONAL LAW MEETS SOCIAL JUSTICE 26 DEAN
PERLMAN HELPS LEAD ACCESS-TO-JUSTICE-EFFORT 27 SUFFOLK LAW
LAUNCHES INNOVATIVE HYBRID ONLINE JD PROGRAM 28 EMPATHY AND
REHABILITATION, ALUMNI FORGE NEW PATHS FOR THE COURTS 32 SUFFOLK
LAW RESPONDS TO THE HOUSING CRISIS 38 WALK IN MY SHOES: A DAY IN
THE LIFE OF A BLACK WOMAN ATTORNEY 41 HONORING THE MEMORY
OF A RISING STAR IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE 42 DEAN’S CABINET GROWS BY
FIVE 44 STUDENT AWARD NAMED FOR FORMER DEAN ROBERT SMITH
WINTER 2021 49 REMEMBERING KENNEDY FAMILY ADVISOR GERARD DOHERTY

SUFFOLK

LAW

CONTENTS

Dean
Andrew Perlman

Executive Editor
Greg Gatlin
Editor-in-Chief
Michael Fisch
Associate Editor
Katy Ibsen
Design
Jenni Leiste
Contributing Writers
Kara Baskin
Beth Brosnan
Alyssa Giacobbe
Jon Gorey
Mark Potts
Contributing Photographers
Michael J. Clarke
Adam Johnson
Copy Editor
Janet Parkinson

32
Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine is
published once a year by Suffolk
University Law School. The magazine
is printed by Lane Press in Burlington,
VT. We welcome readers’ comments.
Contact us at 617-573-5751,
mfisch@suffolk.edu, or at Editor, Suffolk
Law Alumni Magazine, 73 Tremont
St., Ste. 1308, Boston, MA 021084977. c 2021 by Suffolk University. All
publication rights reserved.

SUFFOLK LAW
RESPONDS TO THE
HOUSING CRISIS
Tackling Discrimination
and Affordable Housing
Head On

EMPATHY AND
REHABILITATION
Suffolk Law Community
Helps Forge New Paths
for the Courts

28

02
A MESSAGE FROM DEAN
ANDREW PERLMAN

04
LAW BRIEFS

12

38
WALK IN MY SHOES:

A Day in the Life of a Black Woman Attorney

PANDEMIC PIVOT
12 Closing the COVID-19
Justice Gap
12 NY Times Highlights
Eviction Relief Tool
13 A Quick Turn Toward
the Virtual Classroom
13 Clinics Forge Ahead in
Face of Pandemic
13 Emergency Fund Helps
Students Impacted by
COVID-19

14
IMPACTFUL ALUMNI
14 Serge Georges, Jr.
Nominated to Supreme
Judicial Court
17 Brett Freedman Advises
Senate Intelligence
Committee
18 Regina Holloway’s
Career in Police
Oversight Takes
a New Turn

19
GIVING BACK
19 Three Alumni Make
$1M Pledges in
Single Year
20 All Rise: Celebrating
Suffolk Law’s Female
Leaders

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

20 Posthumous Honors for
Professor Victoria Dodd
20 CATIC Foundation
Supports Acceleratorto-Practice Program
21 Alumni Contributions
With Personal Meaning
21 Ernst Guerrier Pays It
Forward

22
LAW COMMUNITY
22 Diversity, Equity, and
Inclusion at Suffolk Law
25 Transactional Law
Meets Social Justice
26 Dean Perlman Helps
Lead Access-to-Justice
Effort
27 Suffolk Law Launches
Innovative Hybrid
Online JD Program
41 Honoring the Memory
of a Rising Star in
Criminal Justice

42
DEAN’S CABINET

44
RETIREMENTS

45
CLASS NOTES

49
IN MEMORIAM:
GERARD DOHERTY

MESSAGE

A MESSAGE FROM

DEAN ANDREW
PERLMAN
Dear Suffolk Law Alumni:
The past year is one we will not soon
forget. We have faced a deadly global
pandemic, political polarization, a severe
economic downturn, and a reckoning on
issues of racial and social justice.
Suffolk Law alumni are at the forefront
of tackling these kinds of challenges, and this
issue of the Alumni Magazine covers just some
of their accomplishments. For example,
our graduates are addressing flaws in the
criminal justice system; they are working
within the government, at the federal,
state, and local level, to solve a wide range
of pressing problems; and they are raising
essential concerns about the obstacles that
lawyers of color face in our profession.
Suffolk Law faculty and students are
also playing their part. For instance, just
this year, they have uncovered pervasive
discrimination in the Boston housing market,
led an international effort to automate court
forms for the public while courthouses are
closed, and established a new transactional
clinic that offers legal assistance to small
businesses during difficult economic times.
In these and so many other ways,
the Suffolk Law community is making a
difference in a changing, challenging world.
At the same time, we are carrying out our
core mission of providing an outstanding
legal education to talented students who
want to achieve professional success. Here
are some recent notable developments:
Continuing classes in a pandemic.
In March, we temporarily moved our entire
program online to respond to the public
health crisis. Our faculty and staff then
worked hard over the summer to prepare
for a fall semester that has included a mix
of in-person and online classes that are
interactive, engaging, and delivering on our
educational promise.

An exceptional group of first-year
students. The fall 2020 entering class was
9% larger than we were expecting, and our
409 first-year students have median LSAT
scores (154) and undergraduate GPAs (3.44)
that were the strongest of any Suffolk Law
class in the past 10 years.
Increasing bar pass rates. For the
class of 2020, Suffolk Law’s first-time
bar pass rate in Massachusetts increased
substantially to 80.7%. This is our highest
first-time bar pass rate in six years.
Record-setting
donations.
The
Law School received three $1 million
commitments in one year. These were the
three largest commitments ever made by
living Suffolk Law alumni, and two were
made after the start of the pandemic. We
also now have 45 Dean’s Cabinet members,
each of whom has committed at least
$50,000 to advance the Law School’s work.
These contributions are enhancing our
programs and ensuring that Suffolk Law
remains affordable to everyone regardless
of financial circumstances.
Top rankings in experiential
education. Suffolk Law is the only school
in the country that has had four top-25
ranked legal skills specialties in U.S. News &
World Report for five years in a row (2017–21
editions).
Diversity, equity, and inclusion. The
national focus on issues of racial and social
justice is reflected in our own community.
For several years, the Law School has been

2

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

making strides to ensure that our community
is diverse and inclusive. This year, we began
taking additional steps in a wide range of
areas, such as admissions, the curriculum,
and hiring, to advance that important work.
Transforming legal education.
Suffolk Law has launched a pioneering new
Hybrid JD Program (HJD). The program,
which had been in the works long before
the pandemic, is the first in the country
to offer full- and part-time students a
traditional in-person first-year classroom
experience, followed by the option of taking
all remaining classes online.
In this issue of the magazine, you will
find more details about these developments
as well as stories about the many ways
that all of you—Suffolk Law alumni—are
making a difference.
Thank you for everything that you do,
both through your professional impact
and your contributions to Suffolk Law.
Together, we are advancing the Law
School’s longstanding mission of providing
an exceptional, practice-oriented legal
education that enables our graduates to
make a difference in the world. That mission
has never been more important.
Warmest regards,

Andrew Perlman

SUFFOLK LAW BY THE NUMBERS

ONE
TEN

373

45

ONE

IN

The incoming class has the
best academic credentials
of any in the last 10 years.

OF

Governor Baker has nominated Suffolk
Law alum and adjunct faculty member
Judge Serge Georges, Jr. JD’96 to the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. If
confirmed, Judge Georges would become
the third Suffolk Law graduate to join the
Commonwealth’s seven-member high
court in the last four years, joining Elspeth
Cypher JD’86 and Frank Gaziano JD’89.

The number of Dean’s Cabinet members.
Each has committed $50,000 or more to
Suffolk Law.

FIRST
THIRTY

new $1 million
commitments in
the last year.

THE ONLY LAW SCHOOL WITH FOUR TOP-25 LEGAL
SKILLS PROGRAMS FOR FIVE YEARS IN A ROW, U.S.
NEWS & WORLD REPORT (2017–21 EDITIONS).

IN

10 months after graduation, the Class of
2019 had the best employment outcomes
of any graduating Suffolk Law class in at
least 30 years.

LEGAL
WRITING

5

#

3

CLINICS

14

#

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

TRIAL
ADVOCACY

20

#

DISPUTE
RESOLUTION

#

22

LAW
BRIEFS
GRANTS

$1 MILLION GOVERNMENT GRANT
PROPELS FAIR HOUSING EFFORT
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
has awarded Suffolk’s Housing Discrimination Testing Program
(HDTP) a three-year grant totaling more than $1 million to
continue its nationally recognized work. In addition to training
the next generation of civil rights attorneys, the HDTP has
uncovered widespread discrimination against tenants in the
Boston area on the basis of race, the use of housing vouchers,
and other protected categories. Since 2012, the program has
received $4.2 million in grant funding to support its work.

NATIONAL HONORS FOR

S

am Faisal JD’20 was
named a finalist for the
National Jurist 2020 Law
Student of the Year. The honor
is given to just 10 students across
the country.
“Sam has this great quality
of being gentle, at ease, and
warm yet tenacious,” Professor
Ragini Shah, director of
the Immigration Clinic, told
National Jurist. “Whether he’s
helping clients in the immigrant
community, teaching high
school kids through our
Marshall Brennan Program, or
advocating for fellow students,
he brings that warmth and
determination to bear—and
good things happen.”
During his 1L summer,
Faisal volunteered in Boston
Municipal Court, working
with indigent clients and
attempting to get their cases

THE PEW CHARITABLE
TRUSTS TURNS TO SUFFOLK
In response to the pandemic, Suffolk’s Legal Innovation &
Technology Lab created mobile-friendly guided interviews that
walk litigants through court forms without the need for physical
contact; think Turbo Tax, but for legal issues like a restraining
order. With support from The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Lab
is building tools that last beyond the pandemic, to bring data
from those court forms directly into a court’s case management
system. That means court employees will not need to fill in case
data by hand, speeding up court response times and simplifying
processes for pro se litigants. Most importantly, it offers the
potential to revolutionize data collection and analysis in trial
courts throughout the country.

dismissed. He went nine for 12
on the dismissals, National Jurist
reported.
Faisal served as a mentor
in the Law School’s Marshall
Brennan Program, commuting
a few times a week to instruct
a public high school class in
constitutional law. One of his
students went on to win the
preeminent high school moot
court—with federal judges
deciding the final round.
In the last five years, Suffolk
Law has made the Student of
the Year shortlist four times.
Last year, National Jurist honored
Justin Rhuda JD’19, noting that
he helped stop the eviction of a
former U.S. Army prisoner of
war and his family, who were
facing homelessness. Rhuda was
a U.S. Marine Corps captain
from 2010 to 2015, stationed for
two years in the Persian Gulf.

IN THE MEDIA
“DEADLY FORCE BEHIND THE WHEEL”
WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 24, 2020
Professor Emerita Karen Blum addresses a
controversial police driving maneuver used to end car
chases. Blum and Suffolk Law students filed a brief
in a Supreme Court case brought by a man who was
paralyzed in 2001 during an attempted “precision
immobilization technique” by a Georgia police officer.

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

Photographs from left: Michael J. Clarke (2), Adobe, Michael J. Clarke

CIVIC-MINDED STUDENT

LAW BRIEFS

BUILD IT AND

THEY WILL COME
ALUMNA DESIGNS DIVERSIONARY PROGRAMS APP

D

efense attorneys, especially when
they’re handling low-level offenses
like small-quantity drug possession
and petty theft, often ask judges to divert
their clients into social programs—such
as substance abuse treatment or group
therapy—to avoid a criminal record.
They do that in part because the effects
of a criminal record can be so far-reaching:
ineligibility for college scholarships
or financial aid, lost opportunities for
employment, and denials for private and
public housing.
While working in Suffolk’s Juvenile
Defender Clinic, Nicole Siino JD’18 saw
how difficult it was to find her clients
a place in treatment or job programs
before they were arraigned, and her
student colleagues and public defenders
experienced the same problem.
“I sat in court and listened to judges,
attorneys, and probation officers talk about
dozens of programs designed to help juveniles
succeed and discovered that there was no

master list of community-based resources.
No place to go to do a comprehensive search
where you could learn about programs and
determine if they had openings,” she says.
The idea that young people would lose
an opportunity for professional help and a
shot at redemption largely because lawyers
and social workers didn’t have a basic web
resource seemed wrong.
So she conquered her fear of coding,
turning to Suffolk Legal Innovation
& Technology (LIT) Lab teachers for
instruction. And then she built the tool
she envisioned, the Juvenile Resource
Finder. Today, Massachusetts attorneys
(and anyone else, for that matter) can
check her app on their phones from a
courtroom—and help their clients avoid
the potentially devastating effects of a
criminal record.
Siino is a consultant focusing on legal innovation
and technology at Fireman & Company. Find her
app at bit.ly/NicoleApp2020.

NEW DEGREE
PROGRAM FOR LIFE
SCIENCES LAW
In collaboration with Suffolk’s
Sawyer Business School and the
College of Arts & Sciences, the Law
School has launched a new Master of
Science in Law: Life Sciences degree.
The interdisciplinary program is
designed to help students secure jobs
and advance careers in the life sciences,
one of the nation’s fastest-growing fields
for job growth. A 2019 Massachusetts
Biotechnology Education Foundation
report indicates that the state does not
have enough suitably trained workers for
available life sciences positions and that
filling openings often takes more than
three months as employers compete to
hire promising candidates.
QUESTIONS?
Contact Jennifer Karnakis at
jkarnakis@suffolk.edu.

PROFESSOR EARNS ABA
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

A

t an event headlined by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Illinois Attorney
General Kwame Raoul, Suffolk Law Professor Janice C. Griffith received a
Lifetime Achievement award from the American Bar Association Section of
State and Local Government Law for her years of service and impressive professional
accomplishments. She began her career as an associate with the Wall Street firm Hawkins,
Delafield & Wood, then served as general counsel for New York City’s Housing and
Development Administration. Griffith also served as Suffolk University’s Vice President
for Academic Affairs and dean of Georgia State University College of Law.

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

LAW BRIEFS

IN THE MEDIA

NEW SUFFOLK LAW FACULTY
ON ISSUES THAT MATTER
“TELL US ABOUT A LEGAL ISSUE THAT IS ANIMATING YOU.”
NEW PROFESSORS WEIGH IN

JENNIFER
CIARIMBOLI
LIVING TOGETHER?
YOU MAY NEED SOME
LEGAL ADVICE
A recent study by the Pew
Research Center has found for the
first time that the percentage of
people cohabiting is higher than the
percentage of married couples.
In March, Boston News 25 turned
to family law expert Professor
Maritza Karmely to ask if she had
any legal advice for people living
together.
She had several recommendations:
Put your names on all assets. Hire
an attorney for four important
documents—your house deed, your
will, a power of attorney for financial
decisions, and a health care proxy.
Marriage provides tax benefits as
well as safeguards if couples decide
to split up, she added. For example,
unmarried fathers have fewer rights
than married fathers when it comes
to custody, at least until a judge gets
involved.

STEPHEN
CODY

Assistant Professor of Academic Support
BA, Boston University
JD, University of Notre Dame Law School

Assistant Professor
BA, Temple University
MPhil, Cambridge University
JD, PhD, University of California, Berkeley

Ciarimboli served as in-house counsel at
Re:Sources and at Sapient Corporation,
where she advised on a variety of global
legal issues, including contracts and
compliance. Prior to working in-house, she
was an associate at Goodwin Procter LLP.
Remote bar complexities
“Due to the pandemic, 2020 graduates
dealt with months of changes to the dates
and format of the bar examination. Most
students took a remotely administered
test in October rather than a live exam in
the summer. I’m thinking a lot about how
those changes impacted our students,
whether they disproportionately affected
particular groups, and how I can support
our future graduates who are dealing
with continuing uncertainty around the
administration of the exam.”

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

Before coming to Suffolk Law, Cody
was a research director at Berkeley Law’s
Human Rights Center and prosecuted
criminal cases for the U.S. Attorney’s
Office (Eastern District, California).
His interviews with hundreds of child
soldiers and other survivors have helped
determine how best to prepare, support,
and protect witnesses who testify against
perpetrators of mass violence.
Supporting witnesses of war crimes
“Witnesses are the lifeblood of
international criminal trials. Most victims
and witnesses have survived killings,
torture, or the destruction of their homes.
For many, testifying in a war crimes trial
requires an act of great courage, especially
when perpetrators still walk the streets
of their villages and towns. Criminal
prosecutors must be part of national and
international efforts to support and protect
victims and witnesses and help to restore
communities affected by violence.”

LAW BRIEFS

MAURICE
DYSON

ALI ROD
KHADEM

CARLOS M.
TEUSCHER
Assistant Clinical Professor
Director, Transactional Clinic
BS, University of Southern California
JD, Georgetown University Law Center

Assistant Professor
BA, MA, JD, University of California, Berkeley
MA, PhD, Harvard University

Dyson practiced law with Simpson
Thacher & Bartlett LLP, where he
specialized in mergers and acquisitions,
securities, and leveraged buyouts valued
at over $166 billion. He participated in
landmark pro bono school-finance litigation,
winning a $14 billion judgment that was
upheld on appeal. He also led federal civil
rights enforcement as the Special Projects
team attorney for the U.S. Department of
Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

Photographs from left: Adobe, Michael J. Clarke (5)

Professor
BA, Columbia University
JD, Columbia Law School

Khadem has worked as an associate in
King & Spalding’s Middle East and Islamic
finance group; as an associate in Linklaters’
China mergers and acquisitions group;
as a senior director for global strategic
relationships at Westport Innovations; and as
a senior vice president for Asia and Middle
East strategy at Macquarie Capital. He
speaks several languages, including Arabic,
Mandarin Chinese, Farsi, and French.

Teuscher was a lecturer and clinical
instructor at Harvard Law School, where
he directed the community enterprise
project of the transactional law clinics.
Before joining Harvard Law, he worked
on domestic and international finance,
mergers and acquisitions, and other
commercial transactions at Linklaters LLP
and Dechert LLP.

Collaboration in a “post-truth” era
“In our so-called post-truth era, we are
experiencing increasing polarization around
fundamental existential questions, whether
they be related to the pandemic, climate
change, religion, race, gender, or nuclear
threat. If information is part of the commons,
then how does pollution of the information
ecology (whether through misinformation,
misunderstanding, or cognitive overload)
undermine the possibilities for agreement and
collaboration? And what new modalities are
needed, at the levels of the individual and the
collective, for resolving the ensuing conflicts?”

“A horrible year”
“COVID-19, the murders of Breonna
Taylor and George Floyd, murder hornets,
and now raging fires along the West Coast.
2020 has been a horrible year. Regardless,
people have come together in different
ways to support each other. Mutual
aid networks have sprung up across the
country, including in the Greater Boston
area, to support immigrants and other
oppressed groups with money, labor, and
education programs, among others. Tax,
business, employment, immigration—the
legal issues are vast!”

Saying no to the “hired gun”
“We often seek a ‘hired gun,’ but we
should advocate for the ‘hired dove’ attorney
to engage in creative problem solving as a
deliberate peacemaker, using restraint,
reconciliation, and healing rather than acting
as instruments to perpetuate malice and
bitterness. As such, the hired dove lawyering
model, first put forth by Professor Mary C.
Szto, gives us a more effective manner for
empathic cooperation in the practice of law,
uniting parties riven asunder by conflict to
reach lasting compromises built on mutual
respect and need.”

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

LAW BRIEFS

LEGAL 500

R

RECOGNITION FROM THE
NATIONAL BLACK
PRE-LAW
CONFERENCE

RECOGNIZES RECENT
GRADUATE

ecognition by The Legal
500 typically takes years
of building a career and
clientele. An organic chemist
turned Suffolk Law student has
accomplished the feat while
still in law school.
Paul R. Fleming JD’20, who
serves as a patent agent with
Dechert LLP, was recognized
this year by The Legal 500 U.S.
for his patent prosecution work.
“The partner I worked with
said that it’s a big deal,” says
Fleming, who received his PhD
from MIT and did his postdoc
at the National Institutes of
Health before working as a
scientist for AstraZeneca. “I
think my background in the
pharmaceutical industry really
helped me. I am able to help
clients because I understand

Suffolk Law was recognized at
the 15th-anniversary celebration
of the Annual National Black PreLaw Conference & Law Fair with that
organization’s “Outstanding Law School
Diversity Outreach Award.”
The school’s admissions outreach and focus
on diversity pipeline programs contributed to the honor. One
example of the pipeline in action is recent graduate Sam Faisal
JD’20. As a public high school student in Boston, Faisal wasn’t
thinking of becoming an attorney until he began receiving lessons
in constitutional law from two Suffolk Law students. His mentors
were serving as Marshall Brennan fellows, teaching subjects like free
speech in the high school context, search and seizure law, and civil
rights in police encounters.

drug discovery so well; it’s
deeply ingrained in my
system.”
His work as a staff scientist
at Choate, Hall & Stewart with
Andrea Reid JD’06, a former
chemist herself, helped inspire
his own transition to law. The
two continue to work together
today at Dechert.
“It definitely took me some
time to get comfortable making
the switch from research to
being a patent agent. That’s a
big switch,” he says. “So, for me,
it was really gratifying to see that
the clients appreciated the work
I did and found that I was a
valuable part of their team.”
Through Suffolk Law’s new
Accelerated JD Program,
Fleming completed his JD a
year and a half early.

IN THE MEDIA
NIGHTLINE AND ESQUIRE COVER
SUFFOLK LAW HOUSING STUDY
On July 1, the Boston Globe reported that undercover
investigations by Suffolk Law’s Housing Discrimination
Testing Program (HDTP) “found that Black people posing
as prospective tenants were shown fewer apartments than
whites and offered fewer incentives to rent, and that real
estate agents often cut off contact when the renters gave
Black-sounding names like Lakisha, Tyrone, or Kareem.”
The HDTP study was also covered in Esquire, The
Chronicle of Higher Education, on NPR, and cited on ABC
News Nightline.

SUFFOLK HELPS
LAUNCH NATIONAL
POLICING CONSORTIUM
Dean Andrew Perlman helped lead the creation of the ABA-Legal
Education Police Practices Consortium, which launched in October.
The Consortium is creating opportunities for more than 50 law
schools across the country to work with the ABA and local, state, and
national stakeholders to improve police practices, from use of force
policies to training and oversight.

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

LAW BRIEFS

MICHAEL J. NICHOLSON:

MAYOR BY DAY,
LAW STUDENT
BY NIGHT

Photographs from left: Adobe, Michael J. Clarke

A

s Suffolk Law students
navigate law school,
there’s a lot to think
about. For some, there are work
responsibilities, babies to feed,
parents to care for. Michael J.
Nicholson, Class of 2021, is
only 26 years old and running a
small city. He was elected mayor
of Gardner, Massachusetts, this
summer.
Since his election, he’s been
working through all manner of
thorny problems, including a
truncated $70 million city budgetplanning process and making
an educated decision about how
the state would likely fund cities
despite its own pandemic-related
budget challenges.
Nicholson and Gardner’s
school superintendent worked
through four separate plans
required by the state to get the

city’s students back to school
safely this fall. Gardner, a city
of about 20,000, lies 57 miles
west of Boston. By charter, the
Gardner mayor serves as chair
of the school committee.
As part of the city’s hybrid
schooling
model,
Nicholson
proposed the city start off with two
weeks of remote learning for all
students. “That two weeks up front
allowed us to see how other districts
were faring, what mistakes or blips
were happening, so we could avoid
those. It made the learning curve a
little less steep,” he says.
It’s no surprise that he’s been
thinking back to lessons from his
favorite Suffolk Law professors,
including Judge Serge Georges,
Jr. JD’96 and Professor Anthony
Polito. “I’m responsible for
managing the procurement
process for the city,” Nicholson

9

THREE
SUFFOLK
LAW
STUDENTS
WON
LOCAL
ELECTION
RACES IN
2020

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

says. “Professor Polito helped me
see the whole system, how we got to
the process that we use to set a city’s
excise and property tax numbers.”
Nicholson’s Government Lawyer
class included some equally politically
minded students who ran for office
in Massachussetts—for example,
33-year-old Meghan K. Kilcoyne,
Class of 2021, who was elected state
representative for the 12th Worcester
District. Another classmate, 31-yearold Michael J. Owens, Class of
2021, served for four years as a
town councilor in Braintree. And
another Suffolk Law student, John J.
Cronin, Class of 2022, was elected
state senator for the Worcester and
Middlesex District.
Before becoming mayor, Nicholson
served as town administrator of
Rutland, Massachusetts, and as top
aide for then-mayor of Gardner,
Mark Hawke.

LAW BRIEFS

SUFFOLK LAW

STUDENT WINS
PATENT AWARD

W

hile working as an investigator in oral biology at Boston
University, Eva Helmerhorst, Class of 2021, discovered that
a naturally occurring oral bacteria, Rothia mucilaginosa, can
break down gluten proteins. Her discovery and forthcoming inventions
will create a natural therapy for individuals with celiac disease or other
forms of gluten intolerance.
Going through the patent process spurred Helmerhorst’s interest in
law, she says: “I was in contact a lot with the Office of Technology
Development during the time, and this is how I actually became
interested in patent law.”
Helmerhorst, who holds a doctorate in oral biochemistry, was
recognized in 2019 as one of 13 honorees at the Boston Patent Law
Association’s 9th Annual Invented Here! Awards, and was one of four
honorees invited to share more about their work.
“I remember one of the questions I was asked was: ‘How do you
get to a discovery?’ My answer was ‘Just let your brain wander and
see where it goes and make connections’ ... because, when I found the
enzyme ... it was kind of an accidental discovery. It often goes like that,”
says the Suffolk Law 4L evening student.
Helmerhorst’s journey from science to IP law is not uncommon at
Suffolk Law. In a typical year, more than a dozen entering students hold
a PhD, many in STEM fields. They often pursue patent law, one of the
reasons that 30% of Boston-area patent lawyers are Suffolk Law alumni.

THE
DOCTOR
IS IN

35 PhDs ENROLLED AT SUFFOLK LAW

The incoming Law School class boasts 14
PhDs, 46 students with graduate degrees, and
even a nuclear engineer. While impressive,
this is not unusual. In recent years, Suffolk
Law has attracted an increasing number
of students with advanced degrees, with 35
PhDs currently enrolled.
“Many of these students have graduate
degrees in STEM fields, and they know
that the Law School has a terrific local
and national reputation in IP law,” says
Professor Rebecca Curtin, co-director of the
Intellectual Property Concentration. “Many

10

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

of these students already have jobs in law
firms working on patent matters, so they
need to go to law school at night. We pair an
outstanding IP program with a highly ranked
evening program. It’s a perfect match.”
Many attend Suffolk Law for the IP
Concentration, which is one of the largest
and most developed of its kind in the
country, offering a patent law specialization
and a full range of IP courses—patents,
copyright, trademarks, trade secrets, and
licensing—to introduce students to the
diversity of the field.

LAW BRIEFS

NEW GROUP
ASSISTS FIRST-GEN
STUDENTS

Michael Murray (right), in his previous position as the AHL executive
vice president of hockey operations, presents the AHL Playoff
MVP award (Jack A. Butterfield Trophy) to Andrew Poturalski of the
Charlotte Checkers following their AHL Calder Cup championship
during the 2018-19 season.

ACHIEVING HIS

NHL DREAM
ALUMNUS JOINS THE MINNESOTA WILD

Photographs from left: Courtesy of Carly Gillis Photography , AHL File Photo

M

ichael Murray JD’08 has been named assistant to the general
manager of the National Hockey League’s Minnesota
Wild. In his new role, Murray will assist in the day-to-day
responsibilities of the Wild’s hockey operations department, including
contract negotiations, scouting, and player development. He will also
support hockey operations for the American Hockey League’s (AHL)
Iowa Wild.
Hockey is part of Murray’s DNA—he first wore skates and handled
a hockey stick when he was 3 years old. He played at Dartmouth
and for two seasons professionally, and his father, Bob Murray, was
part of Boston University’s 1971 and 1972 NCAA championship
teams. Murray was previously the executive vice president of hockey
operations for the AHL.
“You can never have too many smart people around you, especially
during these unprecedented times,” said Wild General Manager Bill
Guerin. “Between Michael’s education and experience in the hockey
world ... he will help make our organization better.”
Murray says he wouldn’t have achieved his dream of working in the
NHL without his Suffolk Law degree, noting that he regularly applies
the lessons he learned in courses like sports, labor, and employment
law. “I think one of the best things about Suffolk is the diversity of the
faculty and the ability to learn from their personal and professional
experiences,” he said. “Their firsthand knowledge and expertise is
invaluable.”

11

Lauren Bertino, Class of 2022, a first-generation law student,
said imposter syndrome set in on her first day of classes last fall.
“I realized I had no idea what was going on,” she says. And she
wasn’t alone. “There are plenty of students around me, especially
at Suffolk … who don’t have an uncle or a family friend to tell
them what to expect [when attending law school].”
This experience led Bertino, along with her 2L classmates
Melanie Stallone, Cassandra Munoz, and James Lockett, to create
the First Generation Law Student Association and its podcast
“Firsthand from FirstGen” to support other first-generation law
students in understanding the nuances of law school.
The podcast delivers insights from other students, faculty, and
alumni. “Firsthand from FirstGen” is working on more episodes
now and seeking out alumni for interviews.
“Suffolk is well-known for its strong alumni network,” Bertino
says. “That is why I came to Suffolk in the first place and why
it is such an especially good place for first-gen students. When
I was looking to see whether I wanted to even go to law school,
I spoke to Suffolk alumni who were so willing to just say, ‘Yeah,
here’s the deal.’”
Episodes 1 and 2 of “Firsthand from FirstGen” can be
found on Spotify, tinyurl.com/suffolkfirstgen. Alumni
interested in participating can email the organization at
sulsfirstgen@gmail.com.

IN THE MEDIA
“‘WET’ INK SIGNATURES REQUIREMENTS
MAY FADE AFTER CORONAVIRUS”
BLOOMBERG LAW, APRIL 10, 2020
With the logistical challenges of meeting in person
during a pandemic, many states are moving away from
requiring “wet signatures.” Professor Gabe Teninbaum
JD’05 explains why this idea is long overdue. He argues
that wet signatures remain a common practice, like a lot
of legal practice processes, simply because of inertia.

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

PANDEMIC
PIVOT

A TEAM GATHERS ACROSS FIVE CONTINENTS.
WATCH NBC 10 COVERAGE AT bit.ly/LITLabNBC

Clinical fellow
Quinten Steenhuis
interviewed by NBC
10 about the court
forms project

CLOS ING THE COVID-19

JUSTICE GAP
By Michael Fisch

I

magine a woman living with an abusive partner,
isolated for months during the pandemic shutdown.
Eventually, she goes to the local courthouse to get
help, but the doors are locked when she arrives—
because of the pandemic, Massachusetts courts are
closed to the public except for emergencies. She waits
outside for hours, until a clerk finally comes with a stack
of complex papers for her to complete on her own.
“Unfortunately, this actually happened,” says
Quinten Steenhuis, a legal technologist and clinical
fellow in Suffolk’s Legal Innovation & Technology
(LIT) Lab. “It’s a problem that was foreseen by Ralph
Gants, the late chief justice of the Supreme Judicial
Court [SJC], at the start of the COVID-19 crisis. He
put out a call for ideas to increase public access to the
courts, and the LIT Lab answered that call.”
Within weeks, the SJC’s Access to Justice
Commission COVID-19 Task Force’s Access to
Courts Committee, co-chaired by LIT Lab director
David Colarusso, had started tackling the question of

how people facing legal emergencies
could access the court from home.
The answer: court forms that
could be filled out and submitted to
the courts entirely via mobile phones.
Simply placing existing court forms
online wouldn’t get the job done.
The forms would need to walk users
through complex legal questions, in the
same way that TurboTax simplifies tax
documents, and provide a way to be
submitted without the usual printing
and signing requirements.
By the end of April, the LIT Lab had
recruited a group of 100 volunteers across
five continents: coders, user experience
experts, designers, lawyers, linguists
offering translation services, and the LIT
Lab’s own committed student team.
Working at rapid speed, the team
launched MassAccess in June with
an initial array of forms. The project
is a remarkable feat, both for its swift
turnaround and its $0 price tag for the
courts. Without the volunteer army,
Colarusso estimates the project could
have cost over $1 million.
The mobile forms address legal
issues from restraining orders to
unlawful eviction and even “breach
of quiet enjoyment”—say, when a
landlord won’t repair a sewage leak in
your kitchen. The creation of court
forms in other legal areas, such as
consumer debt, education, health, and

guardianship, is ongoing.
“In the U.S., even before the
pandemic, a majority of people faced
their civil legal emergencies without
a lawyer,” said Suffolk Law Dean
Andrew Perlman—a problem called
the justice gap.
Additionally, many courts have forms
that must be printed out, filled in by
hand, and delivered to a courthouse or
scanned and submitted to the court, said
Steenhuis. “But many people don’t have
a printer or scanner at home, and they
don’t have access to a library right now—
or a retail store’s computer station,” he
noted. These are some of the hurdles that
the mobile tools overcome.
And because the framework for the
mobile app, Docassemble, is open to
anyone, technologists in other states will
have a leg up in creating similar forms
for their courts.
“This project is extremely helpful,”
said Jorge Colon, a court service center
manager with the Massachusetts Trial
Courts. “When people call to receive
assistance at the Court Service Center, we
can refer them to the different tools that
this project has created, and they are able
to do the same things that they could do
at the courthouse through this project.”
View the MassAccess project
forms at courtformsonline.org.

NY TIMES HIGHLIGHTS EVICTION RELIEF TOOL
Millions of Americans have been
facing the very real possibility of
eviction—in the middle of winter, with a
pandemic spiking.
This fall, the Suffolk LIT Lab released a free online tool that has
helped thousands of tenants across the nation determine whether
they qualify for eviction relief, based on the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention’s (CDC) eviction moratorium order.
If a renter qualifies, the tool produces a customized letter that

can be sent to their landlords, as CDC rules stipulate. In September,
The New York Times featured the tool in its primer on the topic, “The
New Eviction Moratorium: What You Need to Know.”
At press time, the CDC eviction reprieve covers qualified renters
through December 31.
Check out the tool at courtformsonline.org.

12

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

PA N D E M I C P I V O T

CLINICS FORGE AHEAD IN

FACE OF PANDEMIC

A QUICK TURN TOWARD

While the COVID-19 pandemic has upended the traditional faceto-face interactions of Suffolk Law’s 11 clinical programs, students have
found creative ways to help their clients.

THE VIRTUAL
CLASSROOM

The Legal Innovation & Technology Lab created cell phone-guided
interviews that walk pro se litigants through complex court forms.
The team’s effort drew media attention, including a television
segment on NBC Boston.

Photographs from left: Michael Fisch , Michael J. Clarke, Adobe

W

hile COVID-19 has created widespread
hardship, it is also driving rapid innovation—
including at Suffolk Law School, says Professor
Gabe Teninbaum JD’05.
As the recently appointed assistant dean of innovation,
strategic initiatives, and distance education, Teninbaum knew
that the fundamentals of a Suffolk legal education would
remain the same whether faculty and students were miles apart
on a Zoom call or six feet away in a Sargent Hall classroom.
But because the two experiences can feel very different,
he’s made it a priority to get faculty the resources they need
to make their remote classes more intimate and interactive,
as well as rich in content.
Law librarians now serve as “tech guides” or, more formally,
library distance education liaisons, assisting faculty with
the finer details of remote teaching. Faculty tech facilitators
(FTFs), hired students, are the virtual world’s new teaching
assistants, serving as an extra set of eyes to help professors.
Faculty, in turn, are gaining a sense of the new medium’s
unique rhythm and how to incorporate digital tools—from
instant polling of students to building in commentary from
experts around the world.
“So far,” says Teninbaum, “it’s gone terrifically, because
we have a staff and faculty working together to put students’
needs first.”

Students in the newly created Transactional Clinic are working on
legal documents that set out the governance and financial structure
of Puntada, an immigrant women’s worker cooperative that
produces face masks and other personal protective equipment.
In April, the Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples Clinic learned
that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had
referred their case against the government of Guatemala, addressing
persistent government raids of indigenous community radio stations,
to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The Clinic’s student
attorneys drafted and submitted a lengthy merits brief to the Court
in October. Expert witnesses will include UN Special Rapporteurs
and Suffolk Law Professor Lorie Graham.
As the Massachusetts District Attorney’s Offices faced court closures,
the Prosecutors Clinic has jumped in to assist. Working in 17 courts with
five Massachusetts District Attorney’s Offices, students have created
COVID-specific templated motions, flowcharts, and analyses to help
criminal cases proceed without undue delay as litigation resumes.
The Accelerator Practice represented a mother with a housing voucher
who faced discrimination for over a year as she sought in vain to rent an
apartment for herself and her two disabled children. The Accelerator
Practice and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office negotiated
settlements for the family with several of the offending housing providers.

EMERGENCY FUND HELPS STUDENTS IMPACTED BY COVID-19
One law student, the mother
of a toddler, was laid off from fulltime work. Another was unable to
find summer legal employment or
find work as a nanny to make extra
income. A third lost his regular gig
as an Uber driver. These are just a

few of the reasons why students have
applied for grants through the Suffolk
Law CARES Emergency Fund.
The Fund—made possible
through the generosity of alumni,
faculty, and staff members—aims
to help support law students facing

13

financial challenges brought on by
the pandemic. As of September 24,
$33,200 in grants had been awarded
to students in need.
To support Suffolk Law Cares
visit app.mobilecause.com/vf/
SUCARES

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

IMPACTFUL
ALUMNI

SERGE
GEORGES, JR.
NOMINATED
TO SUPREME
JUDICIAL
COURT
SUPREME JUDICIAL
COURT NOMINEE HAS A
REPUTATION FOR LEGAL
BRILLIANCE—AND FOR
TREATING EVERYONE WITH
DIGNITY AND RESPECT
By Beth Brosnan

I M PA C T F U L A L U M N I

Photograph by Michael J. Clarke

O

ver the course of his 25-year legal
career, Judge Serge Georges, Jr.
JD’96 has earned a reputation as a
remarkably gifted communicator.
Whether he’s talking with professional
colleagues, defendants in his Dorchester
courtroom, or his students at Suffolk Law,
Judge Georges is the kind of person who
can connect with his listeners and cut to the
heart of the matter, says Suffolk Law Dean
Andrew Perlman.
Yet for a few brief moments this fall,
Georges, 50, found himself speechless.
On November 17, Governor Charlie
Baker announced Georges’ nomination to
the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
At a State House press conference, the
governor praised Georges not only for his
legal brilliance, but also for the humanity
he has brought to his work as both a Boston
Municipal Court judge and a teacher at
Suffolk Law.
“Many lawyers say he’s their favorite
judge,” Baker said. “Not because he gives
them the answer they want, but because
he knows the law, does his homework,
and treats everyone in his courtroom with
dignity and respect.”
Stepping to the microphone, Georges
paused to collect himself. After thanking
the governor, he said, “I can’t adequately
express what this means to me—I just
don’t have the words.” As a young HaitianAmerican boy growing up in Dorchester, he
added, “I would never have dreamed this
was possible.”
Yet Georges has spent his life believing
in the possible—including in the classroom,
where he has mentored law students, and
in the courtroom, where he has earned a
reputation for making litigants feel listened
to, fairly treated, and able to move forward
with their lives. As the governor put it, “It
seems clear that no matter when Judge
Georges becomes your friend and colleague,

that relationship will last.”
“None of us get to where we are alone,”
Georges said a few days later. “I try to give
people the opportunity to be successful.”
Proud, Joyful Tears
If confirmed in early December, he
will join two other Suffolk Law graduates
on the seven-member court: Justices Frank
Gaziano JD’89 and Elspeth Cypher JD’86.
Even more significantly, he will become only
the fourth Black person ever to serve on the
328-year-old SJC.
Georges’ longtime friend, Suffolk Trustee
Ernst Guerrier BS’91, JD’94, a HaitianAmerican who grew up in Mattapan, wept
when he heard the news.
“Serge’s appointment was a great day for
Suffolk, and for our diverse community,” he
says. “It signifies everything that we preach.
You can grow up in Dorchester or Mattapan
or Roxbury or Jamaica Plain, and if you are
given the opportunity and work hard, you
can reach the highest level.”
Cherina D. Wright JD/MBA’17—the
law school’s assistant dean for diversity,
equity, and inclusion, who first met Georges
when she was president of Suffolk’s Black
Law Students Association—was also moved
to “proud, joyful tears.”
While plenty of systemic racial barriers
remain, she says, “I hope this helps Suffolk
Law students, especially our students of
color, realize the sky is the limit. Serge is
proof of that.”
University President Marisa Kelly calls
Georges “a role model for our students,
someone who embodies our very highest
ideals. And in a period when our country
is wrestling with criminal justice reform, he
brings a deep understanding of how different
communities navigate our legal system.”
Dean Perlman points out that Georges’
tenure on the Boston Municipal Court
will provide “an often under-represented

perspective” for the Supreme Judicial
Court, whose members are rarely drawn
from the district and municipal courts. “His
professional experiences, particularly those
involving the civil and criminal legal issues
that individuals regularly encounter, will be
especially valuable to the court,” he said.

“WHAT SERGE HAS
DONE FOR THE PAST
SEVEN YEARS IS LIKE
PRACTICING LAW
IN THE ER. HE HAS
PRESIDED OVER THE
BUSIEST COURT IN
THE COMMONWEALTH,
AND HE’S DONE SO
WITH INTELLIGENCE,
COMPASSION, AND
COMMITMENT.”
–Ernst Guerrier BS’91, JD’94

Guerrier puts it this way: “What Serge
has done for the past seven years is like
practicing law in the ER. He has presided
over the busiest court in the Commonwealth,
and he’s done so with intelligence,
compassion, and commitment.”
Continued on page 16

15

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

I M PA C T F U L A L U M N I

The early years in Dorchester
Georges was first appointed to the Boston
Municipal Court in 2013 by Governor
Deval Patrick, following more than 15 years
as a trial attorney concentrating in civil
litigation, criminal defense, and professional
licensure and liability.
“I can’t tell you how much it has meant
to me to be a judge in the neighborhood
where I grew up,” he says.
From age 4 until his early 20s, Dorchester
was home. He lived with his parents and
two older sisters in a rented two-bedroom
apartment on Hancock Street in Kane
Square, surrounded by Irish-American,
Cape Verdean, and Puerto Rican families.
He and his friends loved to ride their BMX
bikes through the neighborhood, flying past
the courthouse where Georges would one
day preside.
Education was everything to Georges’
parents, who had left Haiti to avoid political
persecution. His father, Serge Sr., who taught
in the Boston public schools by day, held
down a second job at Honeywell by night,
while his mother, Maryse, worked as a data
entry clerk for the Boston Stock Exchange
and at the Safety Insurance Company, all so
they could afford to send their children to
Catholic schools.
Georges graduated from both Boston
College High School and Boston College,
where he majored in English. (He can still
recite poetry he studied there from memory.)
Having put their three children through
college, Serge Sr. and Maryse Georges
bought their first home, in Randolph, where
they live today. The judge lives nearby, with
his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters.
Yet Dorchester remains home, the place
that taught him “there are a lot of really
good people who get bad breaks,” he says.
It’s a perspective he brings with him to
the courtroom, where he is known for giving
people a chance while also holding them
accountable. “When you are practicing at
the district and municipal court level,” he
says, “you see there are plenty of people

who have just made mistakes and need
some guidance to get back on their feet, stop
committing crimes, and become productive
members of society.”
From 2014 to 2018, he presided over the
Dorchester Drug Court, working with a team
of clinicians, attorneys, police, and parole
officers to provide substance-use offenders
with consistent structure, expectations, and
support. He calls the experience the most
rewarding of his professional life.
“I’ve seen the kind of miracles that come
with sobriety,” he says, “when people who
have lost everything are able to reconnect
with family, find employment and housing.”
After Georges’ SJC nomination was
announced, his email inbox and phone
were flooded with congratulatory messages,
including some from former Drug Court
clients. “It’s ironic they are calling to thank
me,” he says. “I feel I should be thanking
them. This work has given me so much.”
Lighting an intellectual fire
Prior to accepting his nomination
to the SJC, Georges accepted another
honor: Suffolk’s invitation to serve as
Commencement speaker for Suffolk Law’s
Class of 2021, where he will receive an
honorary degree.
An adjunct faculty member since 1999,
Georges has now taught a full generation of
Suffolk Law students. At the start of every
school year, when he leads incoming 1L
students in their oath of professionalism,
he shares how the notorious 1989 Charles
Stuart case galvanized him to study law.
When Stuart shot and killed his pregnant
wife, Suffolk Law alumna Carol DiMaiti
Stuart JD’85, and blamed her death on an
unidentified Black assailant, city officials
spent two months indiscriminately rounding
up Black men and interrogating them.
Boston newspapers called for the restoration
of the death penalty.
Georges still has a copy of that newspaper.
“It’s old and yellow and I’m going to be buried
with it, because it informed the rest of my life,”

16

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

he says. Stuart was eventually revealed to be
the murderer and committed suicide, yet there
was no immediate reckoning, no admission of
how an entire community had been presumed
guilty and deprived of its legal rights.
After graduating from BC in 1992,
Georges enrolled at Suffolk Law. There was,
he says, a warmth to everyone he met, and
the sense that faculty and staff alike cared
deeply about students and wanted them
to succeed. “People would take the time
to check in with you, when things were
going well and when they weren’t,” he says.
“Suffolk was a place you could always come
home to.”
Suffolk also lit a fire under him. “My
professors were the best in the business
and they started my love of the law,” he
says. Friday nights would find him in the
basement of the Archer building, debating
the latest slip opinions with his classmate
and close friend, Hank Brennan JD’96,
now a noted criminal defense attorney. “I’m
a nerd,” he cheerfully admits. “I love the
intellectual stimulation of reading the law
and thinking about how to apply it.”
Today, Georges lights those same fires
under his own students in his courses on
Trial Advocacy, Evidence, and Professional
Responsibility. “He is an exceptional
teacher,” says Dean Perlman. Assistant
Dean Wright adds he’s the kind of professor
“who empowers his students, and gives them
a real sense of ownership of the material.”
If confirmed, Georges will bring all this
with him to the Supreme Judicial Court—
not only “his clear command of the law
and his sharp analytical mind,” says Dean
Perlman, “but also his desire to make a
positive impact on the lives of others.”
The prospect of joining the nation’s
oldest supreme court, operating under
its oldest constitution, renders this most
eloquent of men speechless once more. “I
want to be part of a team that is working
to get it right,” Georges says after a pause.
“For a kid from Kane Square, this means
everything.”

I M PA C T F U L A L U M N I

“ONE OF MY PASSIONS IS TRYING TO BRIDGE THE
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE DIVIDE THAT EXISTS BETWEEN,
SAY, SILICON VALLEY AND WASHINGTON.”
–Brett Freedman JD’07

BRETT
FREEDMAN
ADVISES SENATE

INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
By Jon Gorey

Photograph: Courtesy of Aviva Krauthammer

O

n a late December day in 1988, Brett Freedman JD’07
and his family were readying for an overnight flight to
Israel, where they were planning to celebrate 13-yearold Brett’s bar mitzvah. As they packed their bags, anticipation
turned to anxiety when they heard that a passenger jet, Pan-Am
Flight 103, had exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland—killing all
259 people aboard and 11 on the ground in one of the most
deadly airline bombings in history.
“We were watching it on television when the van came to pick
us up to go to the airport,” Freedman recalled. As a suburban
Boston middle-schooler, Freedman says he didn’t grasp the full
dynamics of what was happening at the time, beyond the burning
wreckage on the TV But he could sense and understand his
.
parents’ fear, concern—and resolve. “My mom was upset, and
my dad said, ‘There’s nothing more important than to actually
do this now.’”
Freedman didn’t decide in that moment to pursue a career
in national security, but the experience was influential.
After earning his juris doctor at Suffolk in 2007, Freedman
went on to provide legal counsel at both the National Security
Agency and the National Counter-Terrorism Center in
Washington, DC. Now, he serves as minority counsel for the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), which oversees
the entire U.S. intelligence community.
Working for Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the
committee’s Democratic vice chairman, one of Freedman’s top
priorities in most years is to help get the bipartisan Intelligence
Authorization Act (IAA) through Congress—the critical
legislation that authorizes funding and oversight for the nation’s

powerful intelligence apparatus.
Security threats have evolved
since the Lockerbie bombing, of
course, with cybersecurity and
election interference among the
committee’s current concerns.
“There’s certainly a public
knowledge of the efforts by the
Russian Federation and other
countries to interfere [with the
election] in one way, shape, or
form,” Freedman said in October,
citing as examples the spread of
false narratives and innocuoussounding disinformation that
proliferate on social media.
Freedman isn’t on the front
lines of election cybersecurity
and doesn’t consider himself an
especially technical person. “But in
order to be able to put forth policy,
you need to understand the innards
of what’s happening,” he said, so
he’s had to familiarize himself with
technologies like the 5G wireless
standard, artificial intelligence,
and quantum computing—with
some help from the Congressional
Research Service. He also relies on
relationships he’s built with trusted
academics, think tanks, and private
industry leaders.
Recognizing the importance
of these relationships, Freedman
pushed for the most recent IAA
to include a public-private talent
exchange, which would allow
intelligence officials to spend a year
or more immersed at a company in
the private sector and vice versa.
“One of my passions is trying
to bridge the public and private
divide that exists between, say,
Silicon Valley and Washington,” he
said. Through the pilot exchange

17

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

program, a computer scientist
at the NSA could, for example,
spend a year or two working at
Google—honing their skills and
gaining a better understanding
of its culture—while maintaining
their government tenure and
benefits. Meanwhile, an engineer
from the tech industry could take
time to learn how the government
operates—and how to get things
done within its bureaucracy—
without leaving their job.
Freedman hopes that this
cross-pollination of talent could
help the two camps, which are
often at odds, get past what they
read about each other in the news.
These exchange workers can
“meet the people, see what the
mission is, and get a sense of the
challenges facing them,” he said.
Freedman also hopes the
program could open up the
intelligence community to a
more diverse talent pool. If the
intelligence community as an
analytical body does not reflect the
composition of the country and the
globe, decision makers are going to
miss critical nuances, he warned.
Imperfect as U.S. national
security is, Freedman cherishes
his role in keeping people safe,
and feels fortunate to be part
of something much bigger than
either himself or politics.
“I’ve been proud to be a
part of one of, if not the only,
remaining
truly
bipartisan
congressional committees, where
we put our noses down, look at
the issues, and continue to work
together to try to find solutions,”
he said.

I M PA C T F U L A L U M N I

REGINA HOLLOWAY’S
CAREER IN POLICE
OVERSIGHT TAKES A NEW TURN
By Alyssa Giacobbe

R

egina D. Holloway JD’15 began
law school the year someone
close to her went to prison.
She was raising four children, working
a hodgepodge of jobs to make ends
meet, and living in public housing in
Cambridge. Naturally, her life informed
her approach to law.
“Everything I did in law school
had some relationship to my personal
experience,” she says.
At Suffolk, she found support from
faculty and staff, often turning to Professors
Kathleen Engel and Karen M. Blum
JD’74. Blum ignited her interest in criminal
justice reform, specifically civilian oversight.
After working as a clinical fellow in Suffolk’s
Housing Discrimination Testing Program
and as a bar advocate in the Boston District
Courts, Holloway relocated to Chicago.
At the Civilian Office of Police
Accountability there, she worked as
an investigator overseeing “critical
incidents,” including officer-involved
shootings and deaths in custody. The job
was fascinating, yet frustrating.
“There was not a lot of stability,
and these departments ... really need
political will. I just didn’t see it there,”
says Holloway. “It wasn’t the substantial
change I was looking for.”
Next, she worked with a Chicago
neighborhood policing pilot program
founded by New York University law
professor Barry Friedman. The initiative
was designed to help inform policing
priorities with a deeper understanding
of a community’s concerns. While
police might focus on loitering teens,
for example, the community was more
concerned about hidden sex trafficking

of 13- and 14-year-old girls, she says.
“Even when a problem couldn’t be
fixed immediately, which was often the
case, people still felt like they had a better
quality of life,” says Holloway. “Everyone
felt more like they were a part of the
process of police and community.”
She then received an unexpected offer.
Friedman, who serves on the board of
public safety technologies company Axon
(perhaps best known as the makers of
the Taser), approached her this summer
about joining the company.
“I thought it was crazy. I was just like,
what in my life makes you think that I
would work for Axon?,” recalls Holloway,
a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity.
But following the murder of George
Floyd and other Black civilians by police,
Axon had expanded its company mission to
include a focus on racial equity, diversity, and
inclusion. Its “Sprint for Justice” initiative
resulted in eight new products to support
transparency and officer development.
Holloway ultimately decided to take
the job as vice president of community
impact. “I think they have started to
realize—and I’m hoping to help them
make good on this realization—that the
community is our customer,” she says.
“And that these products need to be
solving for them, and for their lives.”
She points to one new feature, Axon’s
priority-ranked video audit, as an example.
“Civilian Oversight might get 30
hours of body-worn camera footage.
Trying to piece through that stops the
investigation process, stops people from
finding out whether their complaint went
through,” she says. Using the new tool,
investigators can instead seek out keywords

AA (REGINA HOLLOWAY)

18

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

among hours of footage in as little as 30
minutes, helping them to quickly see what
happened in a specific interaction.
Holloway now helps develop
initiatives that connect Axon with the
communities it hopes to serve, educating
civilians on Axon products while learning
about their specific safety concerns. She’ll
also work with police departments seeking
training in nonlethal weapons and other
de-escalation tools and practices.
Next year, she will assemble a
community coalition that includes
members from the mental health,
philanthropy, and educational fields to
examine Axon’s products with a racial
equity toolkit. The goal is that community
groups will help the company develop
products that are less likely to result in
injury or escalation to use of force, and
Axon product teams will begin to view their
products through a more equitable lens.
“My hope is that it will be training
on both sides,” Holloway says. Axon
employees are going to need to do their
part, she points out. “I can’t be the constant
reminder of the need for equity.”

THREE ALUMNI
MAKE $1M PLEDGES
IN SINGLE YEAR
ALUMNI INVEST IN
SUFFOLK LAW’S FUTURE

Photographs: Courtesy of Regina Holloway, William G. Hardiman, Tailayah Leche Macklin, Hector Pagan

W

ithin a single year, three different alumni
have committed million-dollar gifts to help
advance Suffolk Law’s mission of delivering
an outstanding, affordable legal education. Two of the
commitments were made after the pandemic began.
“We are deeply grateful for these remarkable
commitments,” said Suffolk University Law School Dean
Andrew Perlman. “They are a testament to the impact of a
Suffolk Law education and the desire of our alumni to give
back and help the next generation of graduates achieve
similar success.”
Most recently, an anonymous donor, who was a firstgeneration college and law school graduate, wanted to
contribute life-changing support to first-generation Suffolk
Law students in an effort to bridge financial gaps that unfairly
burden deserving students. This particular scholarship is
focused on eliminating barriers and widening the pipeline for
first-generation students to enter the legal profession, helping
them thrive as successful and confident lawyers.
Another alum, Warren G. Levenbaum JD’72, has long
supported the Law School as a member of the Dean’s
Cabinet. Levenbaum, founding partner of the West
Coast personal injury law firm Levenbaum Trachtenberg,
recently said, “The true test of lifetime achievement is the
ability to give back, and I am forever grateful to Suffolk Law
School, which has given me this opportunity.”
Last fall, the Law School announced the first of the three
gifts, when Dean’s Cabinet member Barry C. Cosgrove
JD’85 honored the spirit of his wife’s grandmother, Graciela
Rojas-Trabal. She grew up in the Dominican Republic,
and her hard work and ethics were an inspiration to her
family. Today, the Graciela Rojas-Trabal Term Scholarship
Fund supports law students from Cosgrove’s hometown of
Brockton, Massachusetts, as well as law students who have
a significant interest in and knowledge of the Dominican
Republic’s history and culture.

GIVING
BACK

SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS SHARE THE IMPACT OF
THE GRACIELA ROJAS-TRABAL TERM SCHOLARSHIP
WILLIAM G.
HARDIMAN,
CLASS OF 2022
Brockton, Massachusetts
I have wanted to be a lawyer
since I was a freshman in high
school, when I was a member of
my high school’s mock trial team.
During my time as an undergrad,
I interned at the Plymouth County
District Attorney’s Office, which
was an amazing chance to see the
criminal process in action.
Suffolk’s JD/LLM in Taxation
Program really stuck out to me. Being
able to get my JD and LLM in three
years was a no-brainer. After law
school, I plan on practicing tax law.
The scholarship has been
immensely helpful in offsetting the
burden of paying tuition. Barry
Cosgrove and I both attended
Cardinal Spellman High School in
my hometown.
TAILAYAH LECHE
MACKLIN,
CLASS OF 2024
Brockton, Massachusetts
My family has always instilled in
me the value of an education and the
power that comes with knowledge.
I grew up in a community that did
not believe in the criminal justice
system because they felt as though it
failed them. For me, this was hard to

SUMMA DONORS

grasp. I knew I wanted to be a part
of the change. … I wanted to be a
voice for my community to bridge
the gap between the communities
and the justice system.
I plan to focus my legal education
on civil rights and human rights law.
The support of this scholarship will
allow me to build a legal career
where I can become the voice of
those individuals who need to be
heard in our society.
HECTOR PAGAN,
CLASS OF 2024
Caguas, Puerto Rico
I moved to
Boston to continue pursuing my
education. I had a big dream, law
school being my end goal. However,
I had one obstacle to overcome:
mastering the English language.
I was not ready for law school
back then, so I decided to pursue
graduate studies in psychology and
behavior analysis and improve my
writing and communication skills
so I could be prepared to pursue
studies in the law. After completing
my two master’s degrees, I felt ready
to pursue my biggest dream and
decided to apply to law school.
When I visited Suffolk Law,
I felt that I was home. I felt that I
belonged there.
The scholarship has allowed me
to focus more on my studies.

In fiscal year 2020, Suffolk Law saw the largest number of Summa Society donors in 12 years. The Summa Society is composed of those
who contribute $1,000 or more annually.

19

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

GIVING BACK

ALL RISE: CELEBRATING
SUFFOLK LAW’S FEMALE LEADERS

T

he third annual celebration of Suffolk
Law’s female leaders—known as “All
Rise”—took place on November 18.
The event raised over $95,000 to benefit the
Catherine T. Judge Scholarship Fund and
the Suffolk Law Student Emergency Fund.
One part of the program featured a
panel presentation, “Rise Up, Speak Up
and Lift Every Voice,” which highlighted
individual and collective actions to advance
racial and gender equity and justice.
Moderated by Suffolk Law Professor Lolita
Darden JD’91, the panel included Tamela
Bailey JD’04, member of the Law School
Alumni Board of Directors and commercial
legal senior counsel, National Grid; Hon.
Stacey J. Fortes JD’90, First Justice of
Lowell District Court; and Nina
Mitchell Wells JD’76, former
New Jersey Secretary of State
and former director of the
Metropolitan
Washington
Airports Authority (MWAA).
Given the event’s theme,
“Rise Up, Speak Up and Lift
Every Voice,” the alumnae
panelists shared their thoughts
on the importance and
power of sisterhood,
building community,
“All Rise”
moderator
Suffolk Law
Professor Lolita
Darden JD’91

and personal empowerment, as well as
on the collective responsibility of every
legal professional to join the effort of
transforming legal institutions into places of
equity and inclusion for all.
The event also celebrated two
remarkable women. This year, the
Catherine T. Judge Teaching and Service
Award was posthumously presented to
Professor Emerita Victoria Dodd, who
died earlier this year. The Marian Archer
“Trailblazer” Award was presented to Judge
Marianne B. Bowler JD’76, HLLD’94.
Judge Bowler has served as a magistrate
judge, U.S. District Court, District of
Massachusetts, since 1990 and as chief
magistrate judge (2002 to 2005). She was
the first female president of the Suffolk
Law School Alumni Association Board
of Directors. In addition to her lengthy
judicial service, Bowler recently concluded
two terms as a member of the International
Judicial Relations Committee of the Judicial
Conference of the United States, traveling
to Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Kuwait, Nepal,
and the United Arab Emirates to teach
judges mediation techniques and to lecture
on intellectual property issues, money
laundering, and high-profile criminal cases
including terrorism.

The next All Rise event will be held March 8, 2021.

POSTHUMOUS HONORS
FOR PROFESSOR
VICTORIA DODD
Few are courageous. And even fewer are
courageous often, regularly saying what needs
to be said, even when it’s risky to do so. When
colleagues remember the life of Professor
Victoria J. Dodd, they invariably recall
moments when Dodd showed such courage.
“As one of very few tenured women, she
always put herself out there on important issues
so that we younger women never felt alone,”
wrote Professor Rosanna Cavallaro on hearing
of Professor Dodd’s passing. “That plus her
humor and fierce intelligence made her a largerthan-life figure whom I will miss.”
Dodd taught law for nearly 40 years at
Suffolk, teaching criminal law, constitutional
law, civil procedure, and federal courts and
advancing the interests and status of women
in the profession. As one of the pioneer
female law professors, she faced gender bias
head on, often with humor. She was honored
posthumously with the Catherine T. Judge
Teaching and Service Award at the All Rise
alumni event on November 18.
Among her other accomplishments,
Dodd served as a three-time chair of the
Education Law Section of the Association
of American Law Schools. And her book,
Practical Education Law for the Twenty-First
Century, has been widely used in the field,
both inside and outside the classroom.

CATIC FOUNDATION SUPPORTS ACCELERATOR-TO-PRACTICE PROGRAM
This past spring, the CATIC Foundation committed a generous
$55,000 to support Suffolk Law’s Accelerator-to-Practice Program.
The program prepares graduates to join or establish small law
practices that serve average-income clients.
“We appreciate the CATIC Foundation’s support, which
enables Suffolk Law to fulfill its historic and nationally recognized
commitment to preparing practice-ready lawyers,” said Suffolk
University Law School Dean Andrew Perlman.
The award-winning program consists of an innovative professional

development and skills curriculum. Students learn about law office
management, receive training in efficiency-enhancing law practice
technology, and intern at financially successful small firms and learn how
they operate. They also participate in a full-year capstone experience in
the Accelerator Practice, which combines training in fee-shifting cases
with an opportunity to manage the law firm
embedded within the Law School. CATIC’s
funding will support the ongoing work of the
Accelerator-to-Practice Program.

20

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

GIVING BACK

ALUMNI CONTRIBUTIONS
WITH PERSONAL MEANING

Ernst Guerrier with his family—son Myles, wife Marie,
and daughter Christa—at the 2019 Suffolk Law Clinical
Programs Reception.

By Kara Baskin

Photographs from left: Michael J. Clarke (2), John Gillooly

S

uffolk Law is fortunate to boast
legions of alumni devoted to
giving back. That giving is
especially resonant when generosity
dovetails with professional passions.
Consider Dean’s Cabinet member
Deborah Marson JD’78, executive
vice president, general counsel, and
secretary of Iron Mountain, a Bostonbased global leader for storage and
information management services.
Her $100,000 of funding supports a
clinical fellow for Suffolk Law’s Legal
Innovation and Technology (LIT) Lab.
“I’m very involved in the new
products that we offer, which
are dependent on technological
advancements. Supporting the LIT
Lab just seemed like a great synergy to
me between what I know and what I
work with—cutting-edge, novel, and
linked to the law,” she says.
Iron Mountain and the LIT Lab
both operate at the intersection of
technology and data science. Marson,
who was the longtime deputy general
counsel for The Gillette Company
before Iron Mountain, is delighted to
help support these civic efforts through
a legal lens.
“Suffolk gave me the gift of being a
lawyer, and I’ve reached a few milestones
in my career that I never expected when
I was a graduate back in 1978,” she says.
“I believe in giving back and trying to
make the road for students today a little
bit easier where I can.”
Her generosity currently supports
clinical fellow and adjunct professor
Quinten Steenhuis, who previously
practiced housing and eviction defense
law for Greater Boston Legal Services.
At the LIT Lab, his projects focus on
the intersection of access to justice
and technology, with an emphasis on
housing and evictions. During the

pandemic, his work is more important
than ever. (See p. 12 for more details.)
Or consider University Trustee
and Dean’s Cabinet member Mark
E. Sullivan JD’79, retired chief legal
officer at Bose Corporation—a
company whose audio innovations,
from noise-canceling headphones
to high-tech speakers, are often
mimicked. To protect the company’s
inventions, Sullivan’s practice focused
on intellectual property, and he
is devoted to supporting the next
generation of Suffolk graduates
interested in the nexis of IP and
business.
He recently committed $250,000,
much of which is intended to advance
the Law School’s work in IP law. “Each
decade brings its own wrinkle in terms
of the knowledge and experience you
need to succeed as a lawyer,” he says.
“For many new graduates, they’ll
need to operate comfortably in the
innovation economy, and I wanted to
help out in that subject area as it was
critical to my career.”
“These two remarkable Suffolk
Law graduates have achieved so
much in their careers,” said Dean
Andrew Perlman. “It is gratifying to
see them give back, and it is especially
meaningful to see them support the
kind of work that has been critical to
their own success.”
Alumni appreciate the chance
to share their professional passions
through funding, but equally significant
is an overarching appreciation for
Suffolk as an institution.
“Suffolk Law is a place of
intellectual curiosity, learning,” says
Marson. “It’s a place that makes a
difference in the lives and careers of its
graduates. What more could anybody
ask for?”

21

ERNST GUERRIER
PAYS IT FORWARD
By Kara Baskin

Suffolk Trustee and Dean’s Cabinet member Ernst
Guerrier BS’91, JD’94 immigrated to Boston from
Haiti at age 7, the son of a cab driver and a hospital
worker. He learned the value of paying it forward at
a pivotal time in his life. The self-described inner-city
kid, who grew up in Mattapan, received a helping
hand to attend Suffolk as an undergrad and later as
a law student.
The opportunity came by way of Richard J.
Trifiro JD’57, HLLD’87, the late Boston lawyer and
philanthropist who was committed to city youth.
The Trifiro family has given nearly $1.6 million to
Suffolk and has made a profound impact on the lives
and careers of countless Suffolk students who needed
financial assistance.
“I asked him: ‘How do I pay you back? Do I have
to work for you for 10 years?’ And [Trifino] said, ‘You
pay it forward,’” recalls Guerrier.
Today, he runs his own law firm, Guerrier &
Associates. “My clients don’t have the opportunity to
hire a major Boston law firm; they just don’t have that
access,” he says.
Guerrier conceptualized and has championed the
Suffolk University Black Alumni Network (SUBAN).
Recently, he and his wife, Marie, pledged $100,000,
half of which will establish the SUBAN Scholarship
Fund—designed for students with an interest in AfricanAmerican studies and social justice. His efforts also led
to the creation of the Suffolk University Celebration
of Black Excellence event, which, this year, showcased
social equity champions.
Guerrier believes in developing a tradition of
hands-on involvement among alumni, and is leading by
example. “Giving back means everything to me. Without
Suffolk, I would not be here today,” Guerrier says. “My
teachers became my friends. My administrators became
my mentors. I’m hoping to preserve that opportunity for
students who will follow me.”
To join Ernst Guerrier in contributing to the
SUBAN Scholarship Fund, text “suban” to 71-777 or
visit: app.mobilecause.com/vf/SUBAN.

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

LAW
COMMUNITY

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION

AT SUFFOLK LAW
A

gainst the backdrop of one of
the largest national civil rights
movements in generations, a
seemingly endless list of Black victims of
police brutality, the exposure of pandemicrelated health disparities, and a resurgence
of the white supremacist movement, Suffolk
Law is reckoning with systemic racism.
In a letter to Suffolk Law students on
June 19, Dean Andrew Perlman wrote the
following:
“Today is Juneteenth, a day when we
commemorate the end of slavery in the
United States. We can use this moment
to reflect on how far we still have to go to
remedy slavery’s horrific and enduring
legacy and to address the profound and deep
problem of racial injustice in our country. As
a law school, we have a special obligation to

pursue justice, to right wrongs when we see
them, and to make an impact, not only in the
broader community but in our own as well.
“Too often the burden of seeking
change falls on those who have been most
disadvantaged by the status quo. This must
change. We all have an obligation, especially
as future legal professionals, to address
injustices where we see them. This is our
shared obligation. I look forward to working
with all of you in the weeks and months
ahead to bring about real, meaningful
change, both in our broader communities
and within our own.”
A new steering committee
Giving top leaders at the school a key
role in recommending practical steps for the
institution in these areas has been a priority

for Dean Perlman. This past spring, he
launched a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
(DEI) Steering Committee chaired by three
academic deans and comprising the faculty
chairs of key standing committees.
These academic leaders will work with
the existing DEI Faculty Committee and
other standing faculty committees to develop
proposals for improvement in the areas of
curricular change, cultural competency of
faculty and students, admissions, recruitment
and retention efforts, scholarships, hiring,
and more. While many of the outcomes
will take more than one academic year
to implement, the steering committee
has already begun its work, and concrete
proposals will be put forward to the faculty
for approval and implementation as early as
spring 2021.
Continued on page 24

22

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

Photographs by Michael J. Clarke

By Michael Fisch

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER
D I V E R S I T Y, E Q U I T Y, A N D I N C L U S I O N ( D E I ) AT S U F F O L K L AW

RAISING AWARENESS

Expanding our existing antiracism, implicit
bias, and LGBTQ+ inclusion orientation
trainings for new law students and the
entire Suffolk community.

11 CLINICS TO
MAKE AN IMPACT

Expanding access to justice through
our 11 nationally ranked in-house clinics
and a new Transactional Clinic to
support nonprofits and businesses that
are committed to creating economic
equity.

DIVERSITY FROM THE TOP

ASSISTANT DEAN
OF DIVERSITY, EQUITY,
AND INCLUSION

More than 1/3 of Suffolk Law’s 11 deans
are people of color and more than 60%
are women. Suffolk Law elected its
second Black female Student Bar
Association president in 2020.

Appointing a newly created Assistant
Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to
spearhead DEI initiatives throughout
the Law School.

SUPPORT FOR FIRSTGENERATION STUDENTS

CLASSES FROM DIVERSE
PERSPECTIVES

Supporting first-generation students
and students from underrepresented
backgrounds through our FirstGeneration Law Students
organization and networking
opportunities with first-generation
alumni.

Expanding our curriculum with new
courses that examine diversity and
inclusion in the legal profession and the
law’s relation to systemic injustice and
inequality; enhancing our existing areas of
focus in Diversity and Social Justice
and Civil Rights & Human Rights Law.

ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT

INSPIRING THE NEXT
GENERATION

Inspiring diverse and underrepresented
high schoolers in law student-coached
trial competitions in the MarshallBrennan Constitutional Law
Program.

AFFINITY STUDENT GROUPS

Celebrating a more inclusive
community with over a dozen affinity
groups that support students from diverse
and underrepresented backgrounds
through multiple programs: Diversity
Week, diversity receptions, anti-racism
panels, and an alumni speaker series.

The Suffolk University Black Alumni
Network (SUBAN) serves current and
future Black alumni through mentoring,
philanthropy, volunteerism, and
events. The SUBAN Scholarship
Fund supports Suffolk students with a
demonstrated interest in serving
under-represented communities.

DIVERSITY IN HIRING

Making the Law School faculty and
staff more diverse by changing our
hiring practices—minimizing the
potential influence of implicit biases and
maximizing our efforts to attract and
recruit diverse candidates.

PEER MENTORS

Growing our Diversity Peer Mentoring
Program by including more students
and new initiatives. Also offering
more safe social spaces, professional
development workshops, and academic
enrichment through the Student Bar
Association’s Diversity & Inclusion
Committee.
23
Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

HBCU & FIRST-GEN
SCHOLARSHIPS

Providing scholarships for students
from historically Black colleges &
universities (HBCUs), as well as for firstgeneration students from Boston-area
colleges.

LAW COMMUNITY

Assistant Dean of
Diversity, Equity,
and Inclusion
Cherina D. Wright
JD/MBA’17 has been
named the first assistant
dean of DEI, building
on her previous work
as director of student
engagement
and
inclusion. In this new
role, Wright will provide
strategic direction for the
Law School’s DEI efforts
and will work closely
with various institutional
stakeholders, including
students, faculty, staff,
and alumni. Starting this past summer, Wright has been leading
all of the deans in monthly town hall meetings with students and
faculty to address issues that are on the minds of student leaders
of color, with upcoming topics including Suffolk’s admissions and
scholarship processes.
A recent town hall featured the co-chairs of the faculty curriculum
committee. The co-chairs and deans addressed questions about the
Suffolk Law curriculum, including how courses are chosen, what is
taught in each course, and how faculty are encouraged to intentionally
address issues of systemic racism, such as redlining and for-profit prisons.
“When a student asks a faculty leader in a public forum,
‘Should a property law class address redlining?’ there’s a great
sense of immediacy and urgency to that question,” says Wright.
“It’s been a great experience for all sides—for the students to have
direct access to faculty leaders, to hear their opinions, and for the
faculty to hear directly from students. We’re having these hard
conversations as a community rather than in our siloes, and that’s
an important first step.”

A time for action
This summer’s protests compelled both the DEI Faculty
Committee and the Student Bar Association to create documents
laying out recommendations for change. The Steering Committee
will use these two key documents to help drive its work in coming
months.
“I want to make public, as I have several times,” Dean Perlman says,
“that studying proposals won’t be enough. The times demand action,
and that is my expectation. I’m committed to finding ways to implement
as many of the community recommendations as possible. Our school
can do better, and we will be a force for change.”

Building on previous work
Wright says that the national racial justice protest movement has
been important in gaining traction for much broader conversations
about race: “More people today are listening and open to talking
about difficult DEI issues, but people should know that the Law
School’s DEI Faculty Committee has been working hard for many
years. They’ve been helping colleagues improve classroom culture,
offering suggestions to better integrate DEI matters into law classes,
and training faculty on microaggressions and implicit bias.”
Wright adds that the Progress to Success: Diversity Peer
Mentorship Program has grown exponentially over the last few
years to provide a full calendar of programming, ranging from social
spaces for students to find community to professional development
workshops and academic enrichment.

Rising to a historic moment
When asked about the DEI work ahead for the Law School,
Professor Maurice R. Dyson, co-chair of the Faculty DEI
Committee, turned to the words of American artist William Merritt
Chace: “Diversity ... is not casual liberal tolerance of anything not
yourself. It is not polite accommodation. Instead, diversity is, in
action, the sometimes painful awareness that other people, other
races, other voices, other habits of mind have as much integrity of
being, as much claim on the world as you do.”
“As long as we can see ourselves in each other’s hopes and ambitions,”
Dyson says, “and respect each other’s equal right to occupy a life with
the same dignity that we want for ourselves, then change is possible.
I believe we can rise to meet this historic moment with the solemn,
sustained commitment it deserves and requires.”

A leading role in
the Student Bar
Association
Elected this year as
president of Suffolk Law’s
Student Bar Association
(SBA), Dayana Donisca
(at left), Class of 2021,
is the second Black
woman to serve in the
role. She has led a critical
conversation around DEI.
In honor of Juneteenth,
she spearheaded an SBA
virtual town hall, where
professors Renée M.
Landers and Karen M.
Blum JD’74 and adjunct
professor Judge Michael C. Bolden JD’78 presented on legal and social
issues connected with systemic racism. On October 22, Donisca was
honored as a racial equity champion by the Suffolk University Black
Alumni Network, which highlighted her advocacy work at Suffolk,
North Carolina’s Queens University of Charlotte, and the AmeriCorps
program in Baltimore.

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

LAW COMMUNITY

TRANSACTIONAL LAW MEETS

SOCIAL JUSTICE

By Michael Fisch

Photographs by Michael J. Clarke

W

hen you think of the term
“transactional law,” perhaps your
mind turns to corporate law—
someone in a suit drafting contracts, maybe
working on a corporate merger.
What you might not think of is a workerowned cooperative of immigrant women in
East Boston producing face masks and other
personal protective equipment (PPE).
“People don’t necessarily connect
transactional law with social justice,”
says Clinical Professor Carlos Teuscher,
who launched and directs Suffolk’s new
Transactional Clinic. “But transactional
law can be a transformative tool for our
community-based clients. We can help create
new economic structures that prioritize
community and equity.”
Toward that end, his students work on
legal formation, debt and equity financing,
general contract drafting and negotiation,
and commercial leases, among other work.
After working at two Big Law firms,
Linklaters and Dechert, Teuscher brings
experience in international finance deals and
mergers and acquisitions to a whole new set
of clients—one of those being Puntada, the
East Boston mask-making cooperative.
Teuscher previously directed Harvard
Law School’s Community Enterprise Project.
We caught up with him to find out more
about Suffolk’s new clinic.

Tell us about the work with Puntada.
Puntada’s worker-owners came together
during the COVID-19 pandemic to support
themselves and their communities. They
decided to form a worker-owned cooperative,
meaning that the workers, and not third-party
owners, fully own and control the business. The
workers produce and sell—or donate, in many
cases—face masks and other PPE to support
low-income immigrant communities in the
Greater Boston area. Their masks have made
their way to families in East Boston, Chelsea,
Chinatown, Lynn, and Dorchester, as well as to
other cities across the U.S.
Working with the cooperative incubator
Center for Cooperative Development and
Solidarity in East Boston, students in the Clinic
recently conducted a bilingual workshop with the
worker-owners to better understand their legal
needs. In addition to learning presentation and
other client-based skills, the Clinic students are
developing Puntada’s internal legal documents,
including a tailored limited liability corporation
operating agreement that will set out Puntada’s
governance and financial structure.
The Clinic is also working with
Community Land Trusts (CLTs). What’s
the basic idea there?
A CLT is often a nonprofit corporation that
is controlled by members of the community.
In many CLTs, the CLT owns land with the

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

intent to hold the land in perpetuity for
affordable housing, among other uses.
In the case of affordable housing,
the CLT will often build a home on
its land and sell the building only—
not the land—to someone of low or
moderate income. The land is leased to
the building owner, often for 99 years.
This “ground lease” approach is
designed to ensure that the nonprofit
can hold onto the land—it won’t be
sold to developers. But homeowners
still gain equity through appreciation
of the part they do own—the building.
There’s another big benefit here.
As the land value goes up, the buyers
in a low-income community aren’t
saddled with that high land cost, just
the building cost, so homes are more
affordable.
There’s less displacement of lowincome people, a lot less foreclosure,
and
affordable
housing
for
generations. Also, because they have
the ability to vote for the CLT’s board
of directors, long-term residents have
more of a say on how the land in their
community is used.
Tell us about the students’ work
on CLTs.
One of our CLT clients this
semester is the Boston Neighborhood
Community Land Trust. BNCLT
provides affordable housing to many
families in Boston’s communities of
color that have been disproportionately
impacted by COVID-19.
One of our student projects for
BNCLT this semester is to develop a
form of ground lease so that the CLT
can move forward with donations of
land from two separate homeowners
in Dorchester. The lease contains
affordability and other restrictions
so that the land is controlled by the
community, while still allowing the
homeowner to build equity.

LAW COMMUNITY

DEAN
PERLMAN

HELPS LEAD
ACCESS-TOJUSTICE-EFFORT

L

awyers from around the country came to the American Bar
Association (ABA) House of Delegates meeting in Austin,
Texas, in February 2020 with a controversial question at hand:
Should states be encouraged to consider innovations in the regulation
of legal services—alterations specifically designed to expand legal
services to more Americans?
“The train is leaving the station. The ABA needs to be on that
train,” Suffolk Law Dean Andrew Perlman told Bloomberg Law in
an interview before the landmark vote on ABA Resolution 115.
The metaphorical train is the increasing number of states that
are adopting innovations designed to address the access-to-justice
gap—the large numbers, 80% to 90% in many states, of low- and
middle-income Americans who face critical civil legal issues like
eviction without a lawyer.
Resolution 115, which passed overwhelmingly, encourages states
to try new ways to address the crisis. As one of the resolution’s
primary drafters, Perlman, inaugural chair of the ABA Center for
Innovation and the former vice chair of the ABA Commission on the
Future of Legal Services, played a key role in the effort.
He recently answered some questions about his national advocacy
effort.
What drove the need for the resolution?
We’re falling further and further behind in terms of addressing
the public’s civil legal needs. The problem is that traditional solutions
over the last several decades, including increased pro bono efforts by
lawyers, additional funding for legal aid, and civil Gideon [providing
a lawyer as of right to indigent clients in civil matters], have been
insufficient.
We need new ideas, and a number of states are trying them. The
resolution says: Look at those states, assess what they’re doing, and
consider trying some new approaches of your own.

Did the resolution recommend any specific innovations?
The resolution doesn’t specify what types of solutions states should
try, though states are experimenting with a lot of new approaches. For
example, some are implementing ways for litigants to resolve their
disputes entirely online; others are developing automated tools and
forms of assistance for pro se litigants; and still others are adopting
streamlined litigation processes.
Some states are also experimenting with new ways to regulate
the delivery of legal services, including changes to the unauthorized
practice of law, the creation of new categories of legal services
providers [the legal equivalent to registered nurse practitioners], and
the loosening of restrictions on lawyers’ abilities to partner and share
fees with other kinds of professionals. For example, Arizona and
Utah recently adopted major reforms in these areas, and other states
are considering doing the same.
The resolution does not take a position on these specific
innovations. Its intent is to encourage states to experiment with new
approaches. Once we assess the data and see what works and doesn’t
work, we’ll be in a better position to know which ideas are worth
trying more broadly and whether it makes sense to recommend any
changes to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and other
model policies. In other words, the resolution encourages states to
be the so-called “laboratories of democracy” when it comes to the
access-to-justice crisis.
Is the passage of the resolution important?
Yes, because it puts the ABA on record as encouraging states to
consider innovations, including regulatory innovations, in the delivery
of legal services at a time when many states have started to consider
and implement such changes. With the weight of the ABA behind the
idea, more states are likely to follow suit. And, most importantly, my
hope is that we will see fresh ideas about how we can best serve the
public’s unmet legal needs.

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

Photographs from left: Michael J. Clarke, Getty Images

By Michael Fisch

xxxxxxxxx • • •

LAW COMMUNITY

SUFFOLK LAW LAUNCHES

INNOVATIVE HYBRID
ONLINE JD PROGRAM
By Michael Fisch

T

he Law School has launched a pioneering new
Hybrid Online JD Program (HJD), the first in
the country to offer full- and part-time students
a traditional in-person first-year classroom experience
followed by the option of taking all remaining classes
online.
We spoke to Professor Gabe Teninbaum JD’05, who will
oversee day-to-day operations of the program in his role as
the Law School’s assistant dean for innovation, strategic
initiatives, and distance education. Teninbaum brings a
deep background to the position. In 2017, the ABA Journal
called him “perhaps the most tech-savvy law professor in
the country,” and since 2015 he has led the Law School’s
Legal Innovation & Technology Concentration.

to attend law school at a flexible time. We’re now leveraging
technology to offer students the opportunity to attend most
of law school at a flexible location. We’re basically updating
Archer’s original vision for the 21st century.
Once students go remote, will they be able to do
moot courts, the Law Review, and other activities?
Absolutely. HJD students are full members of the
community. They’ll have access to all of it: extracurricular
activities and support services, including student groups,
law journals, bar prep classes, academic support, alumni
networking programs, and career services. Also, they’re
welcome to be physically on campus any time they want,
just like any other student. They’ll have the additional
option to take their classes, access services, and engage in
extracurriculars remotely.

Suffolk is taking a new approach with this program:
first year on campus, followed by as much remote
learning as a student wants in the following years.
Why structure the program this way?
By enrolling in the same first-year courses as everyone else,
HJD students will develop close connections with classmates
and faculty. They’ll get to experience those hallmarks of 1L
year, from getting cold-called in Contracts class to participating
in oral arguments in Legal Practice Skills. But then, as upperlevel students, they’ll have flexibility to live and work where they
want during the remainder of law school.
Many students have good reasons for needing to live
outside of the Boston area, whether being closer to family
or a job, or living in a less expensive region. These are
legitimate reasons that might otherwise prevent a person
from attending law school. We’re going to make it easier
for these people to succeed by requiring them to be on
campus for only one year.
In 1906, [Suffolk Law founder] Gleason Archer started
teaching small law classes in his home for working-class
people and immigrants who worked during the day and
attended law school at night. Archer found a way to help
people overcome obstacles by offering them the opportunity

Was the hybrid approach brought on by the
pandemic?
No. Many years before the pandemic, we started to see
a trend toward online work and collaboration in the legal
field. There’s no doubt that COVID-19 is accelerating
that trend, but we were ahead of this curve and have been
planning this program for some time.
These days, if you aren’t comfortable in a remote
environment, you’ll be at a disadvantage in the workplace.
Our HJD students will be at ease engaging in significant
work remotely and using the technologies needed to
do it. This will give them an advantage in a changing
marketplace.
How big is the program expected to be? And what
kind of student are you looking for?
We’ll have small cohorts of no more than 25 new HJD
students per year, and those students will have certain
qualities they share. They’ll be the innovators, the firstadopters. In this unprecedented time, that’s a good person
to be.

27

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

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Photographs from left: Cooper Baumgartner, Roberto Valdivia, Adobe (4), Tim Arterbury, Adobe, Clay Banks, Jon Tyson

I

n his early years as a prosecutor in Suffolk County, Michael V Glennon
.
JD’10 says he struggled with how to help juvenile offenders.
“We were developing their criminal records but not doing the work
needed to support them and keep them out of the system in the long term,”
says Glennon, chief of the Juvenile Unit at the Suffolk County District
Attorney’s Office. “Or we’d lean on a program we were familiar with rather
than calibrating to that particular youth’s needs. So the outcomes we were
getting for moderate- and high-risk youth were all wrong.”
Glennon joined forces with another Suffolk Law alum, University
Trustee Daniel F. Conley JD’83, who as Suffolk County’s district attorney
from 2002 until 2018 created reforms like the 2017 Juvenile Alternative
Resolution (JAR) Program. Glennon developed JAR and now oversees it as
part of the Juvenile Unit.
Their goal was to increase public safety, while at the same time reducing
youth involvement with the courts—and the lifelong barriers that ensue with
a criminal record. That meant creating plans for services and interventions
outside of the court system and appropriate to the specific offender.
Glennon is naturally bullish on the effort, calling it “one of the most
important things I’ll do in my career,” and now he has hard data behind him.
Early statistics from the Juvenile Justice and Policy Data Board in
Massachusetts, as well as a large body of national research, show that youths
who have taken part in diversion programs are less likely to reoffend than
those who are formally processed through the juvenile courts.
And according to the state’s Juvenile Justice Reform Coalition, each
dollar spent on diversion produces benefits of $10.60 to $25.60 for the
community.

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

Just one aspect of reform
Juvenile diversion is one of a number of
criminal justice reform measures that have
emerged locally and nationally in recent
years, many of them spearheaded by Suffolk
Law alumni.
Reform is, of course, an elastic and
amorphous term. But in the arena of court
reforms, Suffolk Law experts say, it includes
model initiatives like the expansion of both
juvenile and adult diversion programs;
specialty courts that focus on drug addiction,
homelessness, veterans’ issues, and mental
health; major changes in bail laws; wider
access to remote judicial hearings; greater
use of prosecutorial discretion; and reducing
jail populations, especially in the age of
COVID-19.
A vital aspect of the reform movement
is its tight focus on data and independent
validation, so that skeptics can see if new
approaches are objectively effective. One
way to get the data is to offer more juveniles
diversion programs. Nicole Siino JD’18, a
graduate of Suffolk’s Legal Innovation &
Technology Concentration, has developed a
tool that helps achieve that goal (see page 5).
While early results have been positive,
more data is needed to learn whether the
reforms championed by Suffolk-connected
experts will pay long-term dividends in
rehabilitation and public safety.
A Suffolk grad’s pivotal role
One Massachusetts legislator and Suffolk
Law graduate instrumental in passing the
state’s landmark criminal justice reform
legislation of 2018 is Rep. Claire D. Cronin
JD’85 of the 11th Plymouth District,
House chair of the Joint Committee on the
Judiciary, and the first woman to serve in that
role. She was a primary author of the bill and
oversaw the bipartisan conference committee
negotiations that got it to the governor’s desk.
The law affects people of all ages who
become ensnared in the legal system. Provisions
include upping the age when youths can enter
the court system from 7 to 12; removing
restrictions on diversion programs to keep

teenage first-offenders out of prison; allowing
some criminal records for 18 - to 21-year-olds
to be expunged; ending mandatory minimum
sentences for low-level drug crimes; and setting
up a medical-release program for terminally ill
and elderly inmates.
According to the Bureau of Justice
Statistics, 65% of inmates in American jails
have not been convicted of the offense they
are charged with. They are awaiting court
action but cannot afford what are often
onerous or punitive fees and bail amounts.
Those situations, research shows, lead to a
higher rate of future offenses.
A centerpiece of the Massachusetts
legislation is its bail reform measures, which
require that judges, in setting bail, take into
account a person’s financial resources and
allow fees and fines to be waived for financial
hardship. Judges must also justify in writing
instances in which bail is set so high that it
prevents someone’s release.
Cronin says she was especially gratified
that her efforts had strong bipartisan
support. “We’ve seen justice reform become
a bipartisan issue around the country,” she
says. “That’s because research and data show
these reforms reduce recidivism, increase
public safety, and save money.”
Improving prosecutorial
discretion
Christina E. Miller, who runs the Law
School’s Prosecutor Program and served as
the Chief of District Courts and Community
Prosecutions at the Suffolk County District
Attorney’s Office, has long focused on the
complex matter of prosecutorial discretion.
She spent years managing the hiring and
training of assistant district attorneys at a
time when efforts to have prosecutors treat
lower-level legal and criminal matters more
holistically took hold as a reform priority.
“Every day an ADA makes from 30 to 100
discretionary decisions,” she says. “There are
charging and sentencing recommendations,
financial penalties, bail amounts, and so on.”
For decades, some prosecutors focused on
using those decisions to drive guilty pleas.

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

But a new generation of progressive DAs
in Massachusetts are rejecting that mindset
and embracing reforms.
“What I’ve seen that is really encouraging
is that options are growing,” Miller says.
“Things like pre- and post-trial arraignments,
diversions and alternative sentencing options,
and the assigning of cases to specialty courts
that are ‘pre-adjudication,’ so an individual
is held responsible and is granted support
without the need for a guilty finding.”
Miller is working on increasing such
options as co-chair of the Massachusetts
Trial Court’s Boston Community Justice
Task Force, a group charged with increasing
diversion, especially in the areas of mental
health and substance abuse.
A new pre-sentencing approach
for substance abusers
Rachelle Steinberg JD’00, MSCJ’03,
assistant deputy superintendent with the
Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office, says that
the justice system is starting to see substance
abuse as a problem that doesn’t lend itself to
simply leaving a person in jail. Public safety
outcomes for the community are better
and less expensive when people get needed
medical, mental health, and substanceabuse treatment and learn some life and
vocational skills, she says.
Steinberg oversees the Opioid and
Addiction Services Inside South Bay
program, or OASIS, which launched in
2018. The program focuses on intensive
substance-abuse treatment and dischargeplanning services for male pretrial offenders.
The men remanded to the unit, about 30 at
any given time, aren’t free to leave, but haven’t
been sentenced either, giving them a chance to
turn their lives around through comprehensive
substance-abuse counseling, mentorship and
support from peers in the program, and other
Sheriff’s Department offerings.
Most of the participants create
individualized reentry plans with OASIS
staff that are coordinated with local service
agencies and include detailed program and
treatment steps.

When judges decide that such a plan
seems reasonable and in keeping with the
nature of the crime, offenders may be released
on probation or to a residential treatment
program, or both, with strict guidelines.
Correctional facilities like Suffolk
County’s are “managing a difficult challenge,
as we have become de facto mental health
and substance-abuse treatment facilities,” she
says. “Our goal is to have someone walk out
of our facilities, and the OASIS program,
more equipped than when they came in. To
do that, we offer evidence-based treatment
and services that are gender-specific and
trauma-informed.”
Charu Verma JD’11, a staff attorney at
the Committee for Public Counsel Services
(the public defender’s office) and co-chair of
the Massachusetts Bar Association Criminal
Justice Section Council, concurs with
Steinberg’s root-causes approach.
“I think today there’s more attention
being paid to the science of substance abuse
and mental health disorders, and how those
intersect with criminal behavior,” she says.
“The science leads you to spending more
money up front before people are caught up in
the justice system—more money for treatment
beds, transitional housing, social workers,
diversion programs, specialty courts.”
As enhanced data is collected about
the savings accrued by treating the
causes of criminal behavior as well as the
positive public safety outcomes of keeping
communities whole, she says, the state’s
budgeting priorities will start to change—and
that’s when criminal justice reform efforts
will really begin to take hold. “Now,” she
says, “when hearts and minds are in the right
places, we lack the resources.”
Incarceration numbers
Former DA Conley says Massachusetts
prosecutors are more likely to embrace
changes that would be politically anathema
in more prison-oriented states. Prisoner
numbers at the Suffolk County House of
Corrections, for example, fell from around
1,000 when he took office to 500 in 2018.

“I think we have always been more
advanced on justice reform,” he says, noting
a wealth of data showing that “over the years
our rates of incarceration have declined—
and, remarkably, crime was going down as
jail populations were going down.”
Anthony Benedetti JD’93, chief counsel
for the Committee for Public Counsel
Services, agrees that the state has made
progress, especially with juvenile justice,
probation practices, and bail reform.
However, he cautions that “the state’s
incarceration rates are still astronomical
compared to Europe.”
“All of us who work in the system,
including defenders, prosecutors, and
judges, need to take responsibility for
creating a fairer and more effective legal
system,” he says.
A judge takes the long view
Judge Serge Georges, Jr. JD’96, nominee
(at press time) for the Supreme Judicial Court
and long-time teacher at Suffolk Law, grew
up in Dorchester and ran the Municipal
Drug Court there from 2014 to 2018. In the
end, reliable financing for the specialty court
system and its affiliated diversion programs is
key to success, he says.
Georges has been praised by the
Massachusetts Bar Association and
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, among others,
for showing extraordinary compassion to
low-level offenders—urging them to embrace
diversionary programs and assisting them
in staying off the courtroom to prison-cell
conveyor belt.
“An appropriately staffed drug court is
worth doing,” he says. “Otherwise it can
be a waste of time. You need a clinician,
a probation officer, the commitment of the
DA’s office, a defense attorney, and longterm treatment beds all in place to make
it work.”
Georges points to the drug courts,
a major catch-basin for people who are
headed for a life of crime. “It’s a shame
courts may be the only way a person can get
help,” he said.

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

In the end, criminal justice reform is as
much about empathy and rehabilitation as it
is about data and funding.
Benedetti asks, “If we cannot end the
cradle-to-prison pipeline in Massachusetts,
what hope does the rest of the country have?”
One answer to that question may lie
within the pockets of the Massachusetts
justice system that are finding practical ways
to maintain public safety while giving some
offenders a shot at redemption.

“We’ve seen justice
reform become a
bipartisan issue
around the country.
That’s because
research and data
show these reforms
reduce recidivism,
increase public
safety, and save
money.”
- Rep. Claire D. Cronin JD’85

SUFFOLK
LAW
RESPONDS
TO THE
HOUSING
CRISIS
Tackling discrimination and
affordable housing head on
By Michael Fisch with reporting from Mark Potts
Photography by Michael J. Clarke

STUDY FINDS DISCRIMINATION
PERVADES GREATER BOSTON’S
RENTAL MARKET
When Aisha inquired about an apartment in Boston
recently, the listing agent said he wasn’t sure when he
planned to show the unit, asked Aisha for her credit
score, and told her to text her number so he could call the
next day. The listing agent didn’t follow up, so Aisha tried
him again. The agent rushed her off the phone, saying,
“You gotta stop calling me.” She never heard from the
agent again.
But when another young woman, Meredith, called
about the same apartment, the agent immediately
offered her a tour, confirmed it by text, and didn’t ask
for her credit score.
Why the difference?
Aisha and Meredith are race-associated names
chosen quite purposefully by Suffolk Law’s Housing
Discrimination Testing Program (HDTP) as part of a study
in which undercover testers interacted with rental agents
or landlords of 50 randomly selected rental properties in
Greater Boston from August 2018 to July 2019.
This summer, the HDTP’s findings were compiled
in a study co-authored by the Analysis Group and
funded by The Boston Foundation.
Highlights from the findings
Overall, Black testers faced discrimination in 71%
of the tests, including issues like not being able to make
an appointment, not being offered the discounts or free
parking offered to white testers, and not being offered
an application. Agents showed Black testers about half
the number of apartments shown to white testers and
were far less likely to return Black testers’ calls—just
62% of the time versus 92% for white testers.
And for people using a Section 8 voucher, which
helps low-income families, the elderly, and people with
disabilities afford rental housing in the private market,
the chances of even touring an apartment were few and
far between.
Nearly 90% of testers who indicated they were
using a voucher faced discrimination, regardless
of their race. In a number of cases, the brokers told
the testers outright that the owner was not accepting
voucher participants.
Both state and federal law prohibit housing
discrimination based on race and source of income,
among other reasons, so the findings suggest both
pervasive discrimination and unlawful conduct. The

33

HDTP’s rigorously designed testing program began in
2012 and has resulted in multiple enforcement actions
by state agencies.
City signs agreement with Suffolk
The most recent findings were so compelling that
they prompted immediate calls for change.
A few days after the study was released on July 1,
2020, industry publication Banker & Tradesman called on
the state’s Attorney General’s Office to convene a task
force to address the housing discrimination problem.
“No serious person can tell themselves that these
results were the product of shoddy study design,” the
publication wrote. “To make sure no other factor could
influence the broker’s actions, the listings in each test
were randomly chosen, testers did not know each other,
participated in only one test each, and, in each test, had
the same income, credit score, sex, disability, family size,
and gender identity.”
Boston City Councilor Matt O’Malley, who
referenced the study on NBC 10, was just one of several
councilors who took to local media this summer to
decry widespread housing discrimination in the city and
to announce a formal council hearing on the HDTP’s
findings.
At that hearing on October 13, Suffolk Law
Professor William Berman, director of the HDTP, laid
out the study’s conclusions. William Onuoha, director of
Boston’s Office of Fair Housing & Equity (OFHE), then
announced that the OFHE had signed an agreement
with Suffolk Law to fund a new discrimination testing
coordinator position, housed at Suffolk. The new hire
will be part of the HDTP and will run a comprehensive
undercover testing program across Boston.
A commitment to enforcement
Spurred by Suffolk’s data, Onuoha announced
that the OFHE will file agency-initiated enforcement
actions against agents and landlords found to be
discriminating. “This is particularly important, because
the responsibility of fighting housing discrimination
shouldn’t only fall on victims,” says Jamie Langowski,
assistant director of the HDTP.
“Imagine you’re rushing to find a place to live for
your family, addressing your work responsibilities, and
then you add on a layer of trying to convince a lawyer to
take on a housing discrimination case,” says Langowski.
“It’s hard for anyone in that set of circumstances to
make a legal case a priority.” And people often don’t

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

know they are being discriminated against,
she adds.
Discipline of rental agents who
discriminate is rare, and the state legislature
should make it easier to suspend offending
brokers, Langowski argues. Toward that
end, the HDTP is regularly convening
fair housing stakeholders from nonprofits,
the government, and academia to push
for changes in enforcement, punishment,
broker training, and the legal processes for
acquiring fair housing.
With a strong commitment for legal
enforcement from the City, more instances
of housing discrimination will be challenged
and stopped, she says.
How does housing discrimination
testing work?
Seventy-one Suffolk Law students served
among 200 testers posing as interested
renters. Pairs of testers, equal except for the
characteristic they were testing for, started
the process by calling the advertisers of 50
randomly selected rentals in nine Greater
Boston cities and 11 Boston neighborhoods.
White testers were assigned names such
as Brad and Anne, and Black testers were
assigned names like Latonya and Jermaine.
The testers recorded their experiences in
meticulously structured reports.
For example, in one test, “Lakisha,” a
Black tester and a Suffolk Law student, met
with an agent to view an apartment. He did
not offer her a rental application and did not
mention any additional, unadvertised units.
However, when “Allison,” a white tester
and also a Suffolk Law student, met with
the same agent, he offered her a rental
application before she even entered the
apartment, and told her after the viewing
that he wanted to show her an additional
unit. He went on to explain “they don’t
advertise that apartment because then they
would have to respond to everyone who
inquires” and they were looking for “people
with quiet lifestyles who work, not CEOs
necessarily, but people with good jobs.”
He invited Allison to join “a select group”
that would tour the unadvertised unit the
following day.

A “hollow” promise
“The promise of the Section 8 program
is a hollow one if a voucher holder is turned
away from renting a property nine out of
10 times just because they are trying to use
a voucher—and this in a state where this
kind of discrimination is explicitly illegal.
A person can’t hope to use a voucher for
upward mobility under these conditions,”
Professor Berman says.
“Housing is the most basic of
necessities,” he adds. “Where you live
impacts your health, your access to
education, and economic opportunities.
The fact that such a high level of race
discrimination exists in our community is a
disgrace and acts as a barrier to opportunity
that must be removed.”

ADDRESSING THE
AFFORDABILITY CRISIS
A separate but related problem for those
who seek affordable housing is that there
simply isn’t an adequate supply, says Suffolk
Law Professor John Infranca, a housing and
land-use expert.
In Massachusetts, and across the country,
neighborhood activists in lower-income and
working-class communities and residents of
wealthy towns are both fighting against the
development of new and dense multi-unit
housing, says Infranca.
When it comes to these large apartment
complexes, residents of wealthy towns
often point to concerns about traffic and
contend that schools and town services will
be overburdened. While in some cases these
concerns may have merit, they also reflect
a longstanding tradition of NIMBYism
(not-in-my-backyard), Infranca says, and
sometimes personal prejudice. Some
people, he says, won’t admit that prejudice
against Black renters and voucher holders
is a key reason why they stand against
multi-story developments with affordable
housing. But, as the recent HDTP study
makes clear, racial prejudice remains alive
and well.
Meanwhile, anti-gentrification activists
in blue-collar towns argue that new housing

34

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

complexes will increase housing prices, alter
neighborhood demographics, and displace
current residents.
Infranca set out to better understand
the fiery opposition in the Bay State, and
across the country, to proposed changes
in zoning laws, the substance of new laws
that have passed in certain states, and a
potential route forward. He is focusing his
scholarship on related issues.
In November 2019, he organized a
two-day national roundtable where leading
academics, policy makers, and advocates
from across the country discussed recent
housing and zoning reform efforts. Speakers
directly involved with reforms in California,
Oregon, and elsewhere discussed lessons
learned and potential roads forward in
Massachusetts and beyond.
Last spring, he learned he was among just
16 professors to receive one of the country’s
top legal academic honors for junior
faculty, an invitation to present his research
at the Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior
Faculty Forum. His paper, “Differentiating
Exclusionary Tendencies,” is forthcoming in
the Florida Law Review.
Build it or not, they will come
The version of gentrification that
has solidified in popular culture, usually
including images of hipsters sipping lattés,
suggests certain truths, Infranca says, but his
research points to a different conclusion than
that of many anti-gentrification activists. He
contends that gentrification is largely caused
by demand—not new supply.
People who can’t afford to live in
Boston’s South End or Jamaica Plain, for
example, will move into less expensive
neighborhoods in Roxbury and Hyde Park
whether developers build new housing or
not, he argues. If no new housing stock
is available, that means more competition
for existing units, housing prices rise
even more rapidly, and there’s even more
displacement.
Infranca points to a study by Lance
Freeman, a Columbia University affordable
housing and urban planning expert,
which shows that people in gentrifying

Suffolk Law leaders
in housing reform,
from left, Jamie
Langowski, assistant
director of the Housing
Discrimination Testing
Program (HDTP),
and William Berman,
Suffolk Law professor
and director of the
HDTP. Suffolk Law
Professor John
Infranca, a housing
and land-use expert.

36

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

neighborhoods don’t move out of their apartments more often than
people do in persistently poor neighborhoods.
Regardless of their neighborhood, low-income individuals tend
to move a lot, Infranca says. “What’s different is who moves in when
people move out, and in gentrifying neighborhoods it tends to be more
affluent, oftentimes white residents moving in. So, if all that is true,
new housing supply by itself is not going to lead to higher levels of
displacement.”
Instead, he argues, new housing supply should help keep
housing prices from skyrocketing.
If we fail to increase the pace of new development, we risk
moving in the direction of the San Francisco area, he warns, noting
the images many have seen on television. In Palo Alto, California,
in the heart of Silicon Valley, news crews document battered RVs
and scruffy cars lining the main road next to Stanford University,
makeshift living places for workers who can’t afford the area’s
hyper-expensive housing.
Greater Boston, facing its own affordable housing crisis, has
significant parallels with the San Francisco area, he says. Both have
limited new development—even as their technology, health, and
other hot job markets continue to attract affluent workers willing
and able to pay top dollar for rent or home ownership.
“That combination has resulted in massive housing price
increases and evictions. The status quo of too much demand and
too little new housing supply is not going to work, and we’ve seen it
play out. It’s clear we need to figure out some creative approaches.”
Looking to the future
In many cases, Infranca says, longstanding zoning laws effectively
limit the construction of new housing. Suburban towns, for instance,
with zoning that mandates single-family homes on sizable lots, make
it difficult, if not impossible, for new, denser housing to be built
that might increase affordability. That in turns limits opportunities
for new residents to move into those communities—and often
exacerbates existing discrimination against people of color.
In Oregon, a recent state law requires cities with more than
10,000 people to allow duplexes in areas zoned for single-family
homes, a concept called upzoning. In California, there’s a movement
to upzone across the state, Infranca says.
Such state upzoning measures—some of which prohibit
exclusively single-family zoning and others that would permit
denser, multi-family housing near transit hubs—are worth
considering, he argues, but controversial. Efforts along these lines
have found limited traction in Massachusetts.
Should low-income communities have greater say regarding
development?
In his paper, Infranca examines whether low-income
neighborhoods should have a greater degree of control over new
development than very affluent communities do.

37

There are a few critical reasons to consider doing that, he argues,
including the historical injustices faced by these neighborhoods:
redlining, discrimination, and disinvestment. Additionally, lowincome communities generally have a high proportion of renters.
The time commitment and costs of finding a new affordable rental
is harder to bear for a lower-income person than for someone who
is higher income, he says.
Infranca also points to Suffolk’s recent rental housing
discrimination study, which uncovers additional obstacles faced by
voucher-holders and Black renters.
He concludes that treating certain neighborhoods differently
than others makes sense as a way to target a narrow subset of
gentrification concerns, including the claims of long-term residents
to a stake in their neighborhoods. Infranca also suggests coming
up with new ways to grant long-term residents of low-income
communities a financial interest in development.
One option, his paper argues, would grant property owners and
long-term tenants development rights they could sell to a nearby
property. This would permit the purchaser to build a higher-density
development, while giving residents a financial stake and some
degree of control over new development in their community.
An industry perspective
Dean’s Cabinet member Jeffrey R. Drago JD’04, a partner
at Drago & Toscano, a Boston zoning/permitting law firm that
represents developers seeking to build large and small residential
and commercial buildings, agrees with Infranca that higher-density
development is part of the solution.
“In many cases we go out to start community processes in a
neighborhood and folks will say it’s too dense or too high or not
enough parking. However, if you want to address affordability, you
need to allow for larger-scale development,” he says. “Then the
municipalities can ask the developers for more affordable units in
return. With a greater supply, the demand will also go down.”
HYM Investments LLC, founded by Boston developer Tom
O’Brien JD’93, is overseeing the redevelopment of East Boston’s
Suffolk Downs. The project increased the required 13% affordable
housing to 20%—the highest feasible amount, according to O’Brien.
“We have two options: we can build a development that includes
up to 20% of affordable housing or we cannot build the project
at all—it’s a pretty stark choice, unfortunately,” he says. “We need
a national initiative to go and build more housing and make that
housing affordable to more people.”
New affordable units are important, but equally important
is equity, says HDTP director William Berman. He has been
surprised by the vehemence of opposition to affordable housing in
Massachusetts, and the veiled and not so veiled suggestions of race
and class that go along with that: “That vehemence comes with
a significant cost to the community, in that economically we can’t
promote growth if we don’t have access to affordable housing.”

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

Walk in
My Shoes:

A Day in the Life of a Black Woman Attorney
Danielle Johnson’s essay is reprinted with the permission of the Boston Bar Journal, where it appeared on May 28, 2020. She is a staff
attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services, where her practice focuses on elder housing and disability benefits.

I

f you approach the steps of the Edward Brooke
Courthouse (named after the first African American
elected to the U.S. Senate post Reconstruction) around
8:45 a.m. on a Thursday morning—colloquially known as
“Eviction Thursday” in Boston—there is a seemingly endless
line of people, mostly in street clothes, waiting anxiously to
get through the security screening. I approach, dressed in a
suit and dress shoes with my hair neatly dreadlocked. I walk
quickly past the lines of waiting litigants with my bar card
and driver’s license in hand. I am a young African American
woman and I am an attorney. In court, I am both an anomaly
and a chameleon, depending on whom I encounter.
The Court: The Tale of Two Lines
The familiar discomfort starts outside the courthouse.
To get through the door of the courthouse to the Eastern
Housing Court sessions on the fifth floor, I must walk past
the long lines of fellow people of color waiting to submit
themselves to the security screening—which often includes an
electronic pat-down—before being allowed in the building. It
is my weekly routine to swallow the discomfort of the two
lines; one short line for predominantly white attorneys and
another longer line for the litigants, including my clients,
predominantly people of color. I present my bar card and

driver’s license, and after close inspection—notably which
are not scrutinized for my white colleagues, who flash their
cards and proceed before me—I am allowed to pass the first
test and enter the foyer of the marbled courthouse.
Inside, the courthouse is buzzing, and the clamor of
chatter and movements echo throughout the hallways. I
make my way up to the fifth floor for the call of the lists.
Exiting the elevator, the scene that awaits can overwhelm an
unsuspecting person, but it is business as usual for Eviction
Thursday. The two “Attorney of the Day” tables are set up
to provide quick legal advice, one for pro se landlords and the
other for pro se tenants. The area is so crammed with people
that one cannot see the Attorneys of the Day. This is not
surprising given that in 2019 alone, 39,600 households faced
eviction in Massachusetts. Of these, 92% of the tenants were
unrepresented; in contrast, more than 70% of landlords
were represented.
At the Attorney of the Day table for tenants, I flip
through the dockets and see the usual massive number of
new eviction cases—about 150 in total—and 55 motion
hearings on the two lists. The day will be long. I brace
myself for the ongoing series of tests that I will face, each of
which will demand that I prove who I am, making Eviction
Thursday an even more exhausting day.
Continued on page 40
38

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

Photograph by Michael J. Clarke

By Danielle Johnson JD’16

39

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

The Client: “You’re My Lawyer?”
Finding my client among the sea of black and brown faces who
are anxiously searching for answers from anyone who might be
willing to listen is doable if I have previously met the tenant. Today
is not that day. Working in legal aid, where there is a mismatch
between high demand and limited resources, I often walk through
the hall shouting out names of clients I will meet for the first time
in court. When my first call does not yield a response, I call again.
Success! I formally introduce myself to the client and field the
expected question: “You’re the attorney I spoke with?” Surprise
mixed with suspicion registers on my client’s face. For my clients, it
is my youth that is concerning. I am used to this look of doubt as an
attorney who practices exclusively with elders; this is my second test
of the day. It is the unspoken challenge to my legitimacy raised by my
appearance. I deflect their anxiety with humor using stereotypical
images of attorneys common to their generation: “I must look
adolescent, not the Matlock or Perry Mason you were expecting?”
To get past the awkwardness, I direct my client’s attention to the goal
for the day and what to expect in the courtroom. But sometimes this
is not sufficient assurance. I confidently explain to my client that this
is “not my first rodeo,” and hope that I have gained their trust. I
leave them to their thoughts and move on to find opposing counsel.
The Bench and the Bar
Housing courts tend to have their usual players, so locating a
specific attorney is not often difficult. Again, today is not that day.
Like a chameleon, I pass unnoticed through the tenants crowding
the halls while waiting anxiously for the courtrooms to open, and
quickly scan each white individual in a suit. In the courtroom,
shades of brown dominate, speckled here and there by clusters of
ivory. I am not the only person of color, or the only woman, or the
only person of modest economic means. Even so, there is a clear
dichotomy: The majority of the tenants are minorities while the
majority of attorneys are white and male. Then there is me.
As the list is called, the attorneys jockey for seats in the jury box.
In that segregated space, protected against the huddled masses
packed into the courtroom, the color scheme flips; today, I am
the only grain of pepper in a sea of salt. I sigh, recalling the day
the court officer singled me out: “Hey, you can’t sit there. You a
lawyer?” Moving past colleagues to an empty seat, I speculate that
they are wondering: “Does she know this section is for attorneys?”

This is the daily reality of what it means to be an attorney of color
in Massachusetts, navigating unwritten tests to prove that I exist, I
am qualified, and that I belong.
Once the call of the lists begins, the doors to the standingroom-only courtrooms are shut. Any defendant not present in
the correct courtroom for the call will be defaulted. Most tenants
who answer are visibly anxious. Once referred to court mediation
on the third floor, some will go over agreements with a housing
specialist, but most will be diverted to sign, without the benefit of
a hearing or trial, the pre-drafted form agreement for judgment
offered by the landlord’s attorney. This is accomplished quickly
in the hallway, often with no understanding on the part of the
tenants of the document they have signed, including the waiver
of their right to request a stay, seek reconsideration, or pursue
an appeal. Instead, they blindly focus on the quickest option that
allows them to remain in their home and escape the stress of
being in court.
My client, who was previously pro se, had signed such an
agreement for judgment with the landlord. The slightest breach
of any of its conditions, including all incorporated lease terms, is
deemed material and could trigger an execution for possession—
and the agreement waived all stays of execution. But today,
there will be no execution for possession. Today, I have prevailed
in negotiating an amendment to the “sword of Damocles”
agreement, and substituted a sustainable repayment plan with
sufficient time to access third-party rental assistance through the
Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) program
for the onerous agreement for judgment. I also connected the
elderly client to the court’s Tenancy Preservation Program (TPP).
I am the most pleased with my success in changing the basis for
the eviction from “fault” to “no-fault,” thereby protecting my
client from mandatory termination of their Section 8 housing
choice voucher.
I have passed today’s last test. I achieved a successful outcome.
I demonstrated my competence to my client and proved my
negotiation skills to an opposing counsel with whom I had not
worked in the past.
Legal Aid and the Massachusetts Bar
Back at my office at Greater Boston Legal Services, my
shoulders relax. Here, I am not burdened by expectations to

40

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

Photograph: Courtesy of the Sarita and Claire Wright Lucas Foundation

“In court, I am both an
anomaly and a chameleon,
depending on whom I
encounter.”

conform to the culture and hierarchy of
a Boston law firm. I am not oppressed
by inadvertent stereotyping nor
subject to daily microaggressions that
would stunt any lawyer’s professional
growth.
Notwithstanding,
my
dominant experience navigating my
chosen profession is one of alienation,
exclusion, and discomfort—the price
that I pay under the “invisible labor
clause” for being a Black woman legal
aid attorney in Massachusetts, serving
the poorest people in Boston who are
predominantly people of color, like me.
In my career, I have experienced
racism, gender discrimination, and
elitism. My experience is not unique.
Throughout the Commonwealth,
attorneys of color are called upon
to prove their qualifications daily, to
colleagues, clients, court personnel, and
even clerks and judges.
The 2019 demographic survey
conducted by the Supreme Judicial
Court, in collaboration with the
Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers,
revealed that out of 22,743 participating
attorneys, 20,043 (86%) identified as
white, and only 494 (2%) identified as
Black or African American, 519 (2%)
as Hispanic or Latinix, and 574 (2%) as
Asian. These numbers make clear what
my experience has proven—there is a
gross lack of minority representation in
the Massachusetts bar.
This is not a “woe is me” story. It
is a call to action for cultural diversity
in law firms and legal organizations
and, more importantly, for reflection
on and recognition of each of our
implicit biases. My day is over, but these
challenges will repeat tomorrow and
next week and every month thereafter
with a new list of scared, mostly poor,
minority tenants, assembled in lines to
enter a courthouse named for the first
African American attorney general
of Massachusetts, all in effort to get
“justice.” We should do better. We can
do better.

Honoring the memory of
a rising star in Criminal Justice

The Sarita and Claire Wright Lucas Foundation strives for diversity in the law
By Kara Baskin and Janet Parkinson

Elected prosecutors in the United
States are overwhelmingly white and
male, according to the 2019 Reflective
Democracy Campaign. Only 3% are men
of color; and while 24% are female, just
2% are women of color.
As a Black assistant district attorney
Sarita Wright Lucas JD’08 didn’t let those
demographics constrain her. At Suffolk
Law, Lucas interned at a corporate law
firm but found her calling as a prosecutor
after an internship in Boston Municipal
Court. She became deputy attorney
general with the Delaware Department of
Justice in Wilmington, Delaware, which is
ranked one of the most violent U.S. cities
on a per-capita basis. A rising star, Lucas
took more felony cases to trial in 2013 than
any other prosecutor. She was named head
of the Wilmington Trial Unit in 2014,
becoming one of the youngest attorneys
to head a criminal unit, trying homicides,
assaults, and other violent crimes.
Tragically, she died that same year of
pregnancy-related complications.

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Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

In her memory, Lucas’ mother, Wanda
Geer, established the Sarita and Claire
Wright Lucas Foundation (SCWLF) in
2015 to support other Black women who
want to pursue careers as prosecutors—a
step toward making those demographics
more representative of the U.S. population.
“There are very few women
prosecutors—and very few women of color
who are prosecutors. Our goal is diversity
in the law to create a more equitable
criminal justice system,” Geer says.
To that end, the SCWLF grants
$5,000 scholarships to Black female law
students to cover the cost of preparing
for and taking the bar exam in four states.
“If you go into private practice, usually
the firm will cover many of these costs, if
not all of the cost—but people who want
to go into public service are on their own
financially,” Geer says.
A second $5,000 employment
incentive is available if recipients become
prosecutors. In its first five years, the
SCWLF has granted scholarships to 11
Black women.
Although the foundation has focused
on the Mid-Atlantic region, it will launch
a paid summer internship program in
2021 with the Suffolk and Middlesex
County District Attorneys’ Offices, with
preference given to Suffolk Law students.
“Sarita wanted to make a difference
in the justice system, as a woman of
color, for victims. She was really just so
passionate about it. We wanted to honor
that,” Geer says.

DEAN’S CABINET
COMMITTED ALUMNI INVEST IN
THE FUTURE OF SUFFOLK LAW

DEAN’S CABINET
GROWS TO 45
MEMBERS
The Dean’s Cabinet now has 45 members, each of whom has
committed at least $50,000 to support the Law School’s programs
and students. Members meet with the dean twice per year to
receive updates about Suffolk Law, offer strategic advice about the
Law School’s direction, and engage with their accomplished fellow
members.
Two new members share what inspired them to join.

JACQUELINE L.
PERCZEK JD’94
“Someone once wrote that the price of leadership in
academia is to forge the path forward and await the judgment
of the future. Dean Perlman is not waiting for the future. The
future is now! An innovator and trailblazer, Dean Perlman’s
global vision has taken our law school to the next level of
excellence. Suffolk Law enjoys enviable national rankings
in various categories, we have a spectacular faculty, and our
school is defining the path forward. I made a gift to the school
because I want to advance the mission of our leadership and
honor the mission of our founders—to pass on a gift when we
can, and to help widen the path to education.”

CARL P. GROSS JD’71
“I had Sargent for Torts, Lemelman for Property and Taxation,
and Judge for Contracts. They inspired me, and I credit a lot of
my success to them and Suffolk Law as a whole. Dean Perlman
visited [my family]—I was impressed with him and his vision. His
assurances to me that the Suffolk mission would not be altered
convinced me to up my game financially.”

42

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

DEAN’S CABINET

SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL

DEAN’S CABINET MEMBERS
Patricia M. Annino
JD’81
Partner
Rimon Law
Boston, MA

Kevin M. Fitzgerald
JD’82
Partner
Nixon Peabody, LLP
Manchester, NH

Henry G. Kara BSBA’66,
JD’69
President
Kara Law Offices
Boston, MA

Robert T. Noonan JD’85
Regional Managing Partner
(ret.)
KMPG, LLP
Boston, MA

Joy L. Backer JD’15
Associate
Fish & Richardson PC
Boston, MA

Christine Newman
Garvey JD’72, Trustee
Global Head of Corporate
Real Estate and Services
(ret.)
Deutsche Bank AG
Santa Barbara, CA

George N. Keches
JD’75
Senior Partner
Keches Law Group, PC
Taunton, MA

Eric J. Parker JD’86
Partner
Parker Scheer, LLP
Lecturer
Suffolk University Law
School
Boston, MA

Todd L. Boudreau JD’98
Partner
Morrison & Foerster, LLP
Boston, MA
Alexander A. Bove, Jr.
JD’67
Partner
Bove & Langa P.C.
Boston, MA
Brian T. Brandt JD’96
Managing Director
SCS Financial LLC
Boston, MA
Claudine A. Cloutier
JD’95
Partner
Keches Law Group, PC
Taunton, MA

Photographs courtesy of Jacqueline L. Perczek, Carl P. Gross

Barry C. Cosgrove
JD’85
Chairman & CEO
Blackmore Partners, LLC
Laguna Beach, CA
Gerry D’Ambrosio JD’93
Partner
D’Ambrosio Brown, LLP
Boston, MA
Gerard S. DiFiore JD’84
Partner
Reed Smith, LLP
New York, NY
Jeffrey R. Drago JD’04
Founding Partner
Drago + Toscano, LLP
Boston, MA

Kenneth T. Gear
BSBA’89, JD’95
Chief Executive Officer
Leading Builders of
America, Inc.
Washington, DC

James A. Lack JD’96
President and Founder
HPL Enterprises
Sunny Isles Beach, FL
Warren G. Levenbaum
JD’72
Managing Partner
Levenbaum Trachtenberg,
PLC
Phoenix, AZ

Marc S. Geller JD’71
Managing Director
Sternhill Partners, Ltd.
Houston, TX

Konstantinos Ligris
JD’01, Trustee
Founder & Board Member
Ligris + Associates, PC
Co-Founder
Escrow Mint, LLC
Newton, MA

Joseph W. Glannon
Professor of Law
Suffolk University Law
School
Boston, MA
Carl P. Gross JD’71
Director & President
GB Ltd. Operating Co., Inc.
Freehold, NJ
Ernst Guerrier BS’91,
JD’94, Trustee
Principal
Guerrier & Associates, PC
Boston, MA
James F. Haley, Jr.
JD’75
Partner
Haley Guiliano, LLP
New York, NY
Bradley M. Henry JD’91
Partner
Meedhan, Boyle, Black &
Bogdanow, PC
Boston, MA

Deborah Marson JD’78
Executive Vice President,
General Counsel &
Secretary
Iron Mountain, Inc.
Boston, MA
Michael J. McCormack
JD’72
Partner
McCormack Suny, LLC
Boston, MA
Timothy M. McCrystal
JD’89
Partner
Ropes & Gray, LLP
Boston, MA
Brian E. McManus
JD’71
President
McManus Capital
Management
Fort Worth, TX

43

Jacqueline L. Perczek
JD’94
Partner
Black, Srebnick, Kornspan
& Stumpf, PA
Miami, FL
Jamie A. Sasson JD’04
Managing Partner
The Ticktin Law Group, PA
Deerfield Beach, FL
Lewis A. Sassoon JD’69
Partner
Sassoon & Cymrot LLP
Boston, MA
Janis B. Schiff JD’83
Partner
Holland & Knight, LLP
Washington, DC
Alan B. Sharaf JD’87
Partner
Sharaf & Maloney, PC
Brookline, MA
Marie-Louise Skafte
JD’96
Founder
Skafte Global Law, PA
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Wayne E. Smith
BSBA’77, JD’82
Adjunct Professor
Suffolk University Law
School
Firm Director (ret.)
Deloitte Tax LLP
Boston, MA

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

Mark E. Sullivan JD’97,
Trustee
Partner (ret.)
Nelson Mullins Riley &
Scarborough LLP
Boston, MA
Regina C. Sullivan
JD’88
Managing Partner
Gaman Real Estate Group
LLC
Wellesley, MA
Thomas M. Sullivan
JD’94
Founding Partner
Lando & Anastasi, LLP
Instructor
Suffolk University Sawyer
Business School
Boston, MA
James S. Trainor JD’00
Partner
Fenwick & West LLP
New York, NY
Kenneth J. Vacovec
JD’75
Senior Partner
Vacovec, Mayotte &
Singer, LLP
Newton, MA
Richard J. Walsh BA’58,
JD’60
Attorney (ret.)
Federal Trade Commission
Naples, FL
Stephen N. Wilchins
JD’82
Founding Partner
Wilchins, Cosentino,
Novins LLP
Wellesley, MA
Linda J. Wondrack
JD’95
EVP, Head of Compliance
for Advice Solutions
Fidelity Investments
Boston, MA

RETIREMENTS
SUFFOLK LAW FACULTY
RETIREMENTS

STUDENT AWARD
NAMED FOR FORMER
DEAN ROBERT SMITH
Robert H. Smith served as the Law School’s dean for eight years
(1999–2007) and retired in May 2020 after serving an additional
13 years on the faculty. To honor his retirement and celebrate his
contributions to the Law School, and to the Clinical Programs in
particular, nearly $50,000 has been raised to establish the Robert H.
Smith Outstanding Clinic Student Award.
The award was created with an anonymous gift of $25,000 and
has grown with additional support from several Dean’s Cabinet
members who wanted to honor their relationship with Smith and
acknowledge his contributions to the Law School.
Smith was a clinical professor before coming to Suffolk Law, and
emphasized clinical education throughout his career. As dean, Smith
helped reimagine the Law School’s clinics and was instrumental in
developing them into cutting-edge experiential programs.
“I am happy to support Dean Smith,” said Trustee and Dean’s
Cabinet member Ernst Guerrier BS’91, JD’94, who contributed to the
creation of the award. “We [Suffolk Law] owe him a debt of gratitude.”

Professor Dwight Golann may be retiring,
but the positive impact he has had on the field
of alternative dispute resolution will endure. He
has been a pathfinder in teaching his subject
remotely—in a field that is so often dependent on
in-person instruction. His scholarship has been
informed by his own deep experience as both a
mediator and a former chief of the Trial Division
of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.
Dwight has been a wonderful colleague, generous
with his learning and assistance. Suffolk’s national
ranking in dispute resolution draws heavily on his
contribution.

“Bob Smith was the dean when I was hired 20 years ago, and I
learned so much from his leadership during his eight years as dean.
Among other accomplishments, he transformed our experiential
programs, especially our clinical and legal writing programs, and
helped to make them the national leaders that they are today,” said
Dean Andrew Perlman.
The first award will be given in the spring of 2021 to a student who
has engaged in outstanding work in a clinic and the corresponding
seminar. Consideration will be given to a student’s commitment to
public service, either in the form of public interest work or through
pro bono contributions, as well as to the student’s commitment to
mentoring future law students.
To make a contribution to the Robert H. Smith Outstanding Clinic
Student Award, visit suffolk.edu/law/alumni/give.

Over his 40-plus years of teaching and
service, Professor Stephen Hicks
is largely credited as the inspiring force
for global legal studies at Suffolk. He
developed LLM degrees in Boston and
abroad, an international internship
program, as well as several exchange
programs. Steve is a superb scholar,
a wonderful mentor to many, and an
influential teacher who has taught
thousands around the world.
—Assistant Dean Bridgett C. Sandusky

I recruited Professor Andy BeckermanRodau to join the Intellectual Property
Concentration as our patent specialist.
It was Andy’s idea that the High Tech
Concentration be retitled the Intellectual
Property Concentration. Andy has been
the driving force in making Suffolk Law
School the training grounds for more patent
attorneys in Greater Boston than all of the
other law schools in the area—combined.
Asking him to join the faculty and be the codirector of the IP Concentration was the best
decision I made as an administrator.
—Professor Michael Rustad

—Professor Lisle Baker

44

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

CLASS NOTES
PROFESSIONAL AND
PERSONAL MILESTONES
FROM SUFFOLK ALUMNI

1955

ARSEN TASHJIAN turned
100 on December 1. He
worked various jobs during the
day and attended law school
in the evening and spent his
entire legal career working at
Hanscom Air Force Base as a
patent attorney for the federal
government, a job that he
found on the bulletin board
at the Law School. During
World War II, he worked at
the Watertown Arsenal, testing
metals for heavy artillery.
He grew up in Everett and
currently resides in Chestnut
Hill. Married for 43 years, he
has three children and two
grandchildren.

Photographs from left: Michael J. Clarke, Class Notes submitted

1974

THE HON. DAVID
G. SACKS has retired
after nearly 34 years as a
probate and family court
judge in Springfield, MA.
He is former chair of the
Massachusetts Trial Court’s
Standing Committee on
Dispute Resolution and
remains a member and vice
chair. As a judge, he worked
with Suffolk interns from
the FYSI Program from the
program’s initial year. After
retirement, he was elected as
a Joe Biden delegate from the
First Congressional District.
David and his wife, Deborah
Leopold, senior manager
for developmental disability
services at BHN, Inc.,
continue to reside in Holyoke.

1984

1975

BRIAN M. HURLEY of Rackemann,
Sawyer & Brewster, was named to The Best
Lawyers in America 2021.
1978

DIANE C. TILLOTSON was named as
one of the 2019 “Lawyers of the Year” by
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. She was selected
for her work on McLean Hospital v. Town
of Lincoln, in which the Supreme Judicial
Court ruled in favor of her client, McLean
Hospital, clarifying the education use
exemption under the Dover Amendment.
1979

KEVIN F. BERRY joined Vaughan Baio
& Partners in Philadelphia as a partner. He
is a commercial litigator who has tried more
than 200 civil jury trials to verdict.
WILLIAM B. FLYNN is building a new
international financial services platform that
brings investors to privately owned midmarket investment opportunities in Europe
and North America.
1983

Boston Law
Collaborative
LLC has
added veteran
employment
lawyer and
mediator JODY
L. NEWMAN
to its practice.
She has more
than 35 years’
experience resolving workplace disputes and
investigating bias and sexual misconduct
cases in workplaces and college campuses.

45

MADELINE S. BAIO
recently founded Vaughan Baio
& Partners in Philadelphia.
She litigates product liability,
premises liability, motor vehicle,
and employment-related matters, representing clients
in the product manufacturing, retailing, transportation,
pharmacy, grocery, and restaurant industries.
1986

ELLEN M. HARRINGTON, of Rackemann, Sawyer &
Brewster, was named to The Best Lawyers in America 2021.
1988

DENISE I. MURPHY was elected to serve as president
of the Massachusetts Bar Association and as co-chair
of the Supreme Judicial Court’s Standing Committee
on Lawyer Well-Being. She is co-chair of Rubin and
Rudman’s Labor and Employment Practice group.
Hermes Netburn shareholder ANTHONY J.
SBARRA, JR. was elected a national director for the
Defense Research Institute.
1989

JOHN C. LA LIBERTE at Sherin and Lodgen was
named to The Best Lawyers in America 2021.
1990

PATRICIA L.
DAVIDSON, a partner
in the Probate, Trust,
and Fiduciary Litigation
group and the Business
and General Litigation
group at Mirick O’Connell,
has been selected to the
2020 Massachusetts Super
Lawyers. She was also
selected to the 2019 Massachusetts Super Lawyers.
Her practice focuses on helping families resolve issues
involving wills, trusts, and real estate, as well as disputes
involving family and closely held businesses.

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

CLASS
NOTES
ISABELLA KIM has joined
Helsell Fetterman, a Seattlebased law firm serving businesses,
organizations, and individuals.
She will be leading its immigration
practice area and will be working
in the firm’s business transactions
practice group.
Leber IP Law, the boutique IP
firm founded by CELIA H.
LEBER, has been in business
for nine years and continues to
grow despite the pandemic.
MAURICE E. MUIR has been elected as justice of the New
York State Supreme Court, 11th Judicial District, for a 14-year
term. He previously served on the Civil Court of the City of
New York, where he presided over civil cases relating to no-fault
insurance, breach of contract, and personal injury claims.
JANE LEARY
LEVESQUE recently
celebrated 28 years as
a full-time teacher of
paralegal, business,
criminal justice, and fire
science at North Shore
Community College.
1991

MARIA R. DURANT
BA’8 8 has been named
the managing director of
Hogan Lovell’s Boston
office.
1992

JOHN D. COLUCCI
of McLane Middleton
has been named to the
2020 Massachusetts
Super Lawyers.

1995

1994

SOL J. COHEN has joined Kerstein, Coren & Lichtenstein
as a partner. With more than two decades of practice, Cohen
has tried over 40 cases to jury verdict and closed over 3,000 real
estate transactions. He notes, “I’ve had my own firm for more
than 20 years and am looking forward to practicing law in a
collegial environment with a team of experienced attorneys.”

PAUL W. CAREY, a partner in
the Creditors’ Rights, Bankruptcy,
and Reorganization group at
Mirick O’Connell, has been
selected to the 2020 Massachusetts
Super Lawyers. He was also
named to the 2019 Massachusetts
Super Lawyers. He concentrates
his practice on creditors’ rights,
bankruptcy, and business
reorganization matters.

McCarter & English, LLP has elected MIA A. FRABOTTA to
its equity ranks.
ROBERT B. GIBBONS,
a partner in the Litigation
group at Mirick O’Connell,
has been selected to the
2020 Massachusetts Super
Lawyers. He was also named
to the 2019 Massachusetts
Super Lawyers. He
concentrates his practice in
commercial litigation, where
he handles a broad range of
business matters involving
commercial contracts,
banking, construction,
commercial landlord-tenant
disputes, complex collections,
and fiduciary fraud.

CHRISTINE
E. DEVINE,
a partner and
the chair of
the Creditors‘
Rights,
Bankruptcy,
and
Reorganization
group at Mirick
O’Connell,
has been selected to the 2020
Massachusetts Super Lawyers.

46

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

CLASS
NOTES
Morgan, Brown & Joy attorney
GREGORY A. MANOUSOS
was named to the Best Lawyers
in America for Litigation—Labor
and Employment.
JENNIFER L. PARENT at
McLane Middleton was named
to the 2020 New England Super
Lawyers for Business Litigation.
1996

JASON S. DELMONICO has
joined global law firm Greenberg
Traurig LLP as a shareholder
in the corporate practice in the
firm’s Boston office. He has
over 20 years of experience
representing major financial
institutions and other commercial
lenders.
TERRI L. PASTORI,
managing partner of Pastori |
Krans, is delighted to announce
Pastori | Krans’ inclusion in
Business NH Magazine’s 2020 list
of top women-led businesses for
the second year in a row, one of
only three New Hampshire law
firms recognized.

Shareholder DAMON M.
SELIGSON has joined Sheehan
Phinney’s Business Litigation
group, where his practice focuses
on commercial litigation and real
estate matters. He also focuses
on assisting clients in medical
malpractice and personal injury
matters.

KEVIN J. WILLIS has been
promoted to counsel at Ropes &
Gray. He is a probate and trust
counsel in the firm’s private client
group. He has advised clients
for nearly 25 years, creating
sophisticated estate plans, settling
estates and trusts, and advising
fiduciaries concerning their
responsibilities. He also advises
beneficiaries of their rights in the
trust and estate settlement process,
and works with both fiduciaries
and beneficiaries in connection
with fiduciary litigation matters.

2004

HEATHER M. GAMACHE
has been named presidentelect of the Women’s Bar
Association for 2020–2021.
As a director in Rackemann,
Sawyer & Brewster’s
Litigation group, Gamache
has a broad focus on real
estate and commercial
litigation matters.

MATTHEW RAY JD/MBA
joins Murtha Cullina LLP’s
Business and Finance
Department.

2005

MICHELE BEAUCHINE
COLLINS was elected to a
three-year term on the board
of directors for the Society of
Financial Service Professionals.
She is an advanced sales
director with MassMutual
Financial Group in Boston,
president of FSP’s Boston
chapter, and an active member
of the Boston Bar Association,
where she participates in the
M. Ellen Carpenter Financial
Literacy Program. She resides
with her husband, Patrick, and
daughter in Nahant, MA.

2000

DAVID C. HARDY manages
the Hardy Law Firm PA in
Tampa, FL. Last fall, his article
“Simon a Slave v. State of
Florida” was the cover feature
of the Florida Bar Journal. He and
his wife, Carolyn, are the proud
parents of an 8-year-old girl and
a 6-year-old boy.
2003

JILL M. RYNKOWSKI
DOYLE has launched Bennett
Doyle LLP in Washington, DC,
specializing in estate and trust
administration, family law, and
litigation.

DAVID L. FINE, a partner
and chair of the Construction
Law group at Mirick
O’Connell, has been selected to
the 2020 Massachusetts Super
Lawyers. He was also named
to the 2019 Massachusetts
Super Lawyers. Fine represents
and counsels clients in the
construction industry, including
commercial, institutional,
and residential owners and
developers, general contractors,
construction managers,
specialty subcontractors,
suppliers, and manufacturers.

ELIZABETH LEVINE,
a director at Goulston &
Storrs, has been named an
“Employment Law Trailblazer”
by The National Law Journal
for her visionary work
helping companies across the
country assess and reform
their corporate culture. This
is Levine’s second trailblazer
award, after being named a
“New England Trailblazer” by
The American Lawyer in 2019.

47

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

JUDITH L. STONEHULSLANDER has been
elected partner at Lathrop
Gage, where she focuses her
practice on patent preparation,
prosecution, and client
counseling in all areas of
biotechnology. She holds a
PhD in molecular genetics
and microbiology and, prior
to obtaining her law degree,
worked as a technical specialist
and patent agent.

CLASS
NOTES
JENNIFER L. JUNKIN has joined Am Law 100 firm
Polsinelli’s Seattle office as an associate in the firm’s
national Intellectual Property Department.

2006

MICHELLE-KIM (LEE) COHEN
has been promoted to deputy general
counsel at Dassault Systèmes, where
she is responsible for employment law
and compliance matters.

JACLYN S. O’LEARY has been elected an individual
clients partner in the Boston office of Day Pitney LLP.
Her practice focuses in the areas of estate planning
and estate and trust administration.

2007

JACK S. GEARAN of global law
firm Greenberg Traurig LLP has
been elected to the board of trustees
of City on a Hill Charter Public
Schools. The nonprofit is dedicated
to graduating responsible, democratic
citizens who are prepared for college
and to advancing community, culture,
and commerce.

HEIDI A. SEELY served as speaker at the Boston Bar
Association’s webinar, “Trusts & Estates End of Year
Review 2020.” An associate in Rackemann, Sawyer &
Brewster’s trusts and estates practice, Seely represents
families and individuals in estate planning, estate
administration, tax planning, trust administration, and
other trusts and estate needs. She is co-chair of the BBA’s
Public Policy Committee and Practice Fundamentals
Committee of the Trusts & Estates Section.
STEPHANIE S. MCGRAW has
been named partner at Shook, Hardy
& Bacon. She focuses her practice on
complex product liability, commercial,
and business litigation.
2010

2008

MATTHEW R. FISHER, a partner
at Mirick O’Connell and chair of
the firm’s Health Law group and
a member of the firm’s Business
group, has been selected to the 2020
Massachusetts Super Lawyers. He was
also named to the 2019 Massachusetts
Super Lawyers. Fisher helps guide
clients through the regulatory maze
that challenges all participants in the
healthcare industry.
2009

DAVID I. BRODY of Sherin and
Lodgen was named to The Best Lawyers
in America 2021.

RYAN P AVERY of Mirageas &
.
Avery LLC was selected as a “Rising
Star” by the 2019 Massachusetts
Super Lawyers.
ALLISON AHERN FILLO has
joined the Boston law firm of Davis
Malm, advising businesses and
individuals seeking U.S. immigration
and naturalization benefits. She
counsels clients on immigration
issues regarding employment and
compliance, as well as immigration
concerns arising in corporate
transactions and obtaining all
categories of non-immigrant visas
and lawful permanent residence in
the U.S.

2011

ANDREW A. KINGMAN was named to Massachusetts
Lawyers Weekly’s “Up and Coming Lawyers.” He is a
senior managing attorney in DLA Piper’s intellectual
property and technology practice. The publication
highlighted Kingman’s work as general counsel to the
State Privacy and Security Coalition, whose members
include 30 of the largest technology, media, telecom,
retail, and online security companies in the world, and
identified him as “a key player in the debate over state
privacy legislation.”
ANDREW M. MACDONALD was elevated to
partner at Fox Rothschild LLP. He advises businesses
on a diverse array of labor and employment law
issues, including union organizing campaigns and
National Labor Relations Board proceedings,
collective bargaining, and labor arbitration, as well
as employment discrimination and wage-and-hour
litigation. He is based in the firm’s Philadelphia office.

ELIZABETH RAHN GALLUCCI
has been named a partner at Ropes
& Gray.

48

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

BRADFORD N.
VEZINA has been
elected as a director of
McLane Middleton.
He focuses on estate
plans for individuals
and families across the
economic spectrum.

CLASS
NOTES

2012

CHRISTOPHER J. ABBOTT was promoted to counsel at Weil,
Gotshal & Manges LLP, where he is a member of Weil’s global antitrust
and competition practice in the Washington, DC office. He represents
clients in civil and criminal antitrust investigations and litigation, and in
obtaining antitrust approval for mergers and acquisitions.
JAMIE G. LEBERER has created a new partnership, Leberer &
Palladino PLLC, that will practice matrimonial and family law in the
Buffalo, NY region.
JACLYN L. MCNEELY has joined Boston labor and employment
law firm Morgan, Brown & Joy as an associate. McNeely counsels
and represents employers in all aspects of labor and employment
law, including workplace discrimination, leave laws, wage and hour
disputes, collective bargaining and grievance arbitration, unfair labor
practices, and related litigation.
2014

BRIAN M. CASACELI, an associate in the Labor & Employment group
at Mirick O’Connell, was named one of the Worcester Business Journal’s “40
Under Forty” for 2020.
MATTHEW R. O’CONNOR joined Pierce Atwood LLP as an
associate. His work involves commercial litigation, ERISA matters, and
assisting an active receivership practice. He lives in Providence, RI, with
his wife, Johanna, and their 1-year-old son, Theo.
On February 23, 2020, DARIUS
PAKROOH married Aris
deOliveira on the 7th-floor
balcony of Suffolk Law School.
“Choosing [to be married
at] Suffolk Law School was a
reminder of how far we’ve come
together. During my law school
library study marathons, Aris
would routinely come visit to cheer
me on and bring healthy food,”
Darius reminisces. The newlyweds
now spend their days operating
Pakrooh Law in Boston.
2017

MELISSA M. MARQUEZ BA’14 joins Knox Ricksen LLP, a civil
litigation firm specializing in complex health care fraud cases, as an
associate.

49

IN MEMORIAM

REMEMBERING KENNEDY FAMILY
ADVISOR GERARD DOHERTY
The passing of alumnus and former Trustee Gerard “Gerry”
Doherty marks the end of an era in Massachusetts politics.
Doherty, who graduated from Suffolk Law in 1960 while
serving in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, was
deeply embedded in the civic life of the Commonwealth and
worked on the historic presidential campaigns of all three
Kennedy brothers. His 2017 memoir, They Were My Friends–Jack,
Bob and Ted: My Life In and Out of Politics, details those relationships.
“Gerry Doherty was someone larger than life who actually
made those around him better,” said Robert J. Allison, a Suffolk
University history professor.
Doherty brought political savvy and legislative knowledge to
his roles, but Allison said what made him truly indispensable was
his character, integrity, and ability to bring people together.
“You can find people who can crunch numbers and can look
at polling data, but understanding how to connect with people
is the most important thing. It’s a character trait that he had
and could use to great effect, and that’s one of the reasons the
Kennedys and others relied on him,” said Allison.
Doherty served on the Suffolk University Board of Trustees
from 1996 to 2014. He received the Law School Alumni
Association’s Edward Bray Legacy Award in 2018 and the
Alumni Service Award in 2005.
“Gerry was not only a civic leader—he was a philanthropic
leader as well. For decades, he made a profound impact on the
lives and careers of countless Suffolk Law students,” said Dean
Andrew Perlman.
Doherty was responsible for nearly one-half million dollars
in scholarship support, including one of the school’s public
service scholarships. Many of the students benefiting from
his philanthropy are from working-class towns, including
Charlestown, where he was a lifelong resident.
“We admire his lifetime of tenacity and his insistence that
individuals must make a difference in their communities,”
Perlman said. “When America’s leaders needed counsel, he
stepped up to help. And when Suffolk Law School and its students
needed him, he answered the call.”
Doherty is survived by his wife, Judge Regina Quinlan
Doherty, who received her Suffolk Law degree in 1973 and an
honorary Doctor of Laws in 2005.

Suffolk Law Alumni Magazine | Winter 2021

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