Boston Bar Association Announces New Leaders as of Sept 1

BOSTON – The 9,500 member Boston Bar Association today announced that as of September 1, 2008, the BBA will have five new officers, all of whom will serve a one year term, and nine new Council members, all of whom will serve a three year term:

PRESIDENT  Kathy B. Weinman
Automatic Accession to Office 

Kathy is a partner at Dwyer & Collora, LLP.  Her practice focuses on complex litigation, principally the defense of corporate and individual clients in white-collar criminal and securities enforcement cases.  Kathy has been BBA President-Elect and has served on its Council and Executive Committee.  She previously co-chaired the BBA Criminal Law Section and was one of the BBA’s designees to the Joint Bar Committee on Judicial Nominations, which evaluates and reports on judicial nominees, and also served on the BBA Education and Nominating Committees.  Kathy has lectured on various aspects of criminal law practice, including at the American Bar Association’s Institutes on White Collar Crime and Health Care Fraud. Kathy graduated from the University of Michigan (A.B. with honors and high distinction, Phi Beta Kappa) and the University of Michigan Law School (J.D., magna cum laude). 

PRESIDENT-ELECT  John J. Regan
Elected to One-Year Term

Jack concentrates on intellectual property and complex commercial litigation, and has chaired WilmerHale’s Intellectual Property Litigation Practice Group. Jack has been co-chair of the BBA Litigation Section, chaired the BBA Intellectual Property Litigation Committee, chaired the BBA Nominating Committee, and been a member of the BBA Children’s Outreach Task Force.  He is a member of the BBA Executive Committee and Council, and the BBF Board of Trustees. Jack is co-chair of WilmerHale’s Pro Bono and Community Service Committee, which manages extensive pro bono legal services and inner city youth education programs.  Jack has chaired the Boards of Trustees of Discovering Justice and LaSalle Academy, and he is a trustee of the Inner City Scholarship Fund.  He was a federal law clerk in the District of Massachusetts and served as a U.S. Navy officer. Jack is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and New York University School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden Scholar.

VICE PRESIDENT  Donald R. Frederico
Elected to One-Year Term

Don is a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, LLP.  His national practice focuses on complex litigation, with particular emphasis on class action defense.  Don chairs the Board of Editors of the Boston Bar Journal.  He recently served as Treasurer of the BBA and member of the Council, has chaired the BBA Nominating Committee, and has co-chaired the Litigation Section.  Don was the founding chair of the BBA’s Class Actions Committee and co-chairs a subcommittee of the ABA’s Class Actions and Derivative Suits Committee.  He is a Fellow of the Boston Bar Foundation and of the American Bar Foundation, a Trustee of the College of Wooster, and a Director of the New England Legal Foundation.  Don has won awards for his pro bono work. A former law clerk to Hon. Joseph L. Tauro, Don is a graduate of the College of Wooster (phi beta kappa) and Cornell Law School (cum laude), where he served as Managing Editor of the Cornell Law Review.

TREASURER  Lisa C. Goodheart
Elected to One-Year Term

Lisa is a partner at Sugarman, Rogers, Barshak & Cohen, P.C., where she focuses on environmental, real estate and business disputes.  She is the Chair of the Massachusetts Judicial Nominating Commission, which assists and advises the Governor in the selection of candidates for state judicial appointments.  Lisa has served as a member of the BBA Council, Executive Committee and Nominating Committee, and as co-chair of the Environmental Law Section and chair of the Environmental Litigation Committee.  She has been active in the American Bar Association as a member of the ABA’s Standing Committee on Environmental Law, and she will soon complete her term as President of NEWIRE (New England Women in Real Estate).  Lisa is also a supporter of the performing arts, and has served on the boards of several dance companies. Lisa is a graduate of Williams College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

SECRETARY  James D. Smeallie
Elected to One-Year Term

J.D. is a partner at Holland & Knight LLP, where he has served as Executive Partner of the Boston office and on the firm's Director’s Committee. He heads the firm-wide Education Team and represents numerous school and colleges in addition to his business litigation practice. At the BBA, J.D. has served as the chair of the Diversity Committee since 2002 and is a member of the BBA Diversity Leadership Task Force. He is also a Commissioner on the ABA’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. J.D. has been listed in Best Lawyers in America and as a Massachusetts Super Lawyer.  J.D. is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Virginia Law School.


NEW COUNCIL MEMBERS

Bruce E. Falby
Appointed to Three-Year Term

Bruce is a partner at DLA Piper, where he focuses on complex business litigation and chairs the Boston office litigation group.  He appears on the Business Litigation list of The Best Lawyers in America and is a Massachusetts Super Lawyer.  Bruce is about to complete his term as co-chair of the BBA Litigation Section, and previously served as co-chair of the BBA Intellectual Property Litigation and Computer Law committees.  He has appeared since 2001 as a panelist at the BBA’s IP Year in Review program.  He has served on several BBA Law Day Dinner and Annual Meeting Luncheon Committees and is a member and former board chairman of the New Philharmonia Orchestra.  Bruce was previously a member of Hill & Barlow.

Bruce is a graduate of Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music (B.M. magna cum laude) and Georgetown University Law Center (J.D. magna cum laude).

George P. Field
Elected to Three-Year Term

George is a partner at Verrill Dana, LLP.  He focuses his practice on complex litigation, including intellectual property, bankruptcy, and fiduciary and directorship disputes.  He is listed in Best Lawyers in America and in New England Super Lawyers for business and commercial litigation.  George serves as co-chair of the BBA Public Service Committee, and chaired the BBA’s 2007 Annual Meeting Luncheon.  He was co-chair of the BBA Summer Jobs Program (1998-2007), and was the founding chair of the Solo and Small Firm Section.  He has also served on the Nominating Committee and the Pro Bono Task Force.  A BBF Fellow, he has served as a trustee of Discovering Justice and of Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, from which he has received the Robert B. Fraser Award for Pro Bono Excellence.

George is an active alumnus of Boston Latin School, Harvard College and Boston College Law School.

Elizabeth Shea Fries
Appointed to Three-Year Term

Liz is a partner in Goodwin Procter LLP’s Business Law Department and a member of its Financial Services Group, as well as chair of its Hedge Funds Practice.   She has particular expertise in innovative investment products, hedge funds and other alternative investments, financial services merger and acquisition transactions, fiduciary issues and compliance matters.  Listed in Best Lawyers in America, Liz is past Chair of the BBA Business Law Section and served on the BBA Membership Committee in 2007.

Liz is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia Law School.

Wayne M. Kennard
Elected to Three-Year Term

Wayne is a partner at WilmerHale.  His practice focuses on representing high-tech start-up and established companies in a full range of intellectual property matters that include patents, trademarks, copyright protection, licensing intellectual property and trade secret protection. Recognized for his exceptional standing in the legal community in the area of intellectual property by Chambers USA in 2005, he also writes extensively on intellectual property issues and has lectured across the country.

Wayne received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the United States Naval Academy and earned his law degree from George Washington University Law School.

Edward Notis-McConarty
Elected to Three-Year Term

Ned is a partner at Hemenway & Barnes practicing in the area of probate litigation, fiduciary and non-profit law, and is Chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.  He is the recipient of an Adams Pro Bono Publico Award from the Supreme Judicial Court for 2008. Ned has chaired the BBA Delivery of Legal Services Section and the BBA Task Force on Unrepresented Litigants.  He served for ten years as Co-Chair of the Board of the Legal Advocacy and Resource Center (LARC), a public interest project of the BBA, and served as a BBA representative on the Joint Bar Committee on Judicial Appointments, which he chaired.  He is a member of the BBA Litigation Section and is co-chair of the SJC Working Group on Access to Counsel.  Ned has also been active at the MBA where he chaired the Access to Justice and Probate Law Sections.

Ned graduated from Harvard College and Boston College Law School.

Maureen O’Rourke
Elected to Three-Year Term

Maureen has been the Dean of Boston University School of Law since May 2006. She has been on the faculty at BU Law since 1993, teaching courses in Commercial Law and Intellectual Property, and advising the student-run Journal of Science & Technology Law.  Before assuming her current position, she served the school as Associate Dean for Administration, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and as Interim Dean.  She is a past-chair of the American Association of Law Schools Computer Law section and chair of its Special Committee on Database Access.  She is a member of the American Law Institute and the Associate Reporter on the ALI’s Principles of Software Contracting project.  Before joining BU, she worked in IBM’s legal department.

Maureen is a graduate of Marist College and Yale Law School.

Laura S. Peabody
Elected to Three-Year Term

Laura is Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, where she manages the company’s Legal, Internal Audit, Compliance and Ethics, Human Resources and Real Estate departments.  Prior to joining Harvard Pilgrim, Laura was Vice President, Deputy General Counsel at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts.  She has been a health care attorney since 1988 when she joined Choate Hall & Stewart’s health care group.  Laura served on the Board of the Women’s Bar Foundation from 2005 to 2008 and is currently serving as a Trustee for both the New England Chapter of UNICEF and the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts in Jamaica Plain. 

Laura received her bachelor’s degree from SUNY Binghamton and her law degree from Boston University School of Law.

Mala M. Rafik
Elected to Three-Year Term

Mala is a partner at Rosenfeld & Rafik, P.C., which concentrates on gaining health care and long term disability benefits for its clients.  Mala has built a national reputation as an expert plaintiff’s ERISA litigator over the past ten years.  Her clients are typically individuals with chronic illnesses and disabilities.  In particular, she has taken on the difficult task of appealing denials of insurance coverage internally and has achieved an extraordinary reversal rate. She has also participated in several litigation victories for her clients in state and federal court.  She is co-chair of the BBA Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Section, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Advocates for Children, American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services.

Mala is a graduate of Colby College and Northeastern University School of Law.

Douglas B. Rosner
Elected to Three-Year Term

Doug is a Director at Goulston & Storrs, P.C. in Boston, where he practices in the firm’s Bankruptcy Group.  He has extensive experience representing clients in complex chapter 11 reorganizations, chapter 7 liquidations and workouts throughout the United States.  Doug is completing his term as co-chair of the BBA’s Bankruptcy Law Section.  As co-chair, he has overseen the establishment of legal services programs including expanding the role of large firms in bankruptcy pro bono matters and a project to assist pro se bankruptcy filers.  Previously, he served two terms as co-chair of the Section’s Law & Public Policy Committee, continues to take a leading role in the BBA’s effort to overhaul the Massachusetts homestead exemption statute and is a frequent speaker at BBA programs.  He is also a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute and the Turnaround Management Association.  Doug was recognized by Chambers & Partners as one of “America’s Leading Business Lawyers” in 2003 - 2007, and by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly as an “Up and Coming Lawyer of the Year” in 2002.

Doug is a graduate of Brandeis University and Boston College Law School.