Issue Watch #12 – Wins for WilmerHale + Jenner & Block, News from the SJC, ICE Arrests & More
Wow—has it been only a month since I last offered an update here on policy at the BBA? I mean, look at all this news! As long as it keeps coming in, I’ll keep passing it along, with a BBA twist. So here you go…
Wins for WilmerHale and Jenner & Block – And the Rule of Law
Jenner & Block and WilmerHale became the second and third law firms to be granted a permanent injunction against a Presidential executive order that targeted them, with two different federal judges finding the actions unconstitutional. This follows a similar ruling, from another federal judge in a case brought by Perkins Coie, which had been the first to face such an order. In all these cases, as well as in one other—where Susman Godfrey has already been granted a temporary injunction—the BBA joined amicus briefs in support of the firms’ claims.
Taken together, these three rulings represent a victory not only for the firms directly involved but for the legal profession and the rule of law, making clear that the executive orders are unconstitutional and threaten our entire system of democratic governance. The BBA is proud to have played a small role in achieving this result, and we hope and trust that Susman Godfrey, the last remaining firm that is challenging an executive order targeting it, will succeed in similar comprehensive fashion.
News from the SJC
Former SJC Chief Justice Wilkins Passes Away
The BBA honors the legacy of former SJC Chief Justice Herbert P. Wilkins, who died last week at age 95. After working for Palmer & Dodge and as counsel to town governments, he spent 27 years on the state’s highest court, serving as Chief Justice from 1996 until his retirement from the bench in 1999, and subsequently taught at Boston College Law School. We are proud to have bestowed upon him both the Haskell Cohn Award for Distinguished Judicial Service in 1991 and, in 1997, a Citation of Judicial Excellence.
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Chief Justice Wilkins was also the son of a former SJC Chief—Raymond Wilkins, who held that role from 1956 to 1970—and the father of a Superior Court judge—Douglas Wilkins, who stepped down in 2023 after 13 years. We extend our condolences to his family and his many former colleagues.
BBA to Honor SJC Chief Justice Budd with Haskell Cohn Award
Current SJC Chief Justice Kimberly Budd will receive the BBA’s Haskell Cohn Award for Distinguished Judicial Service at a ceremony at 16 Beacon Street on Thursday, June 26. The Award is presented annually to a member of the Massachusetts judiciary, or a resident of Massachusetts who is a member of the Federal judiciary, who has distinguished him or herself in a manner that calls for special recognition.
For more information on the event, or to RSVP, please contact Erica Southerland at esoutherland@bostonbar.org.
Watch Our SJC Round-Up Panel on Thursday
This Thursday from 12 to 1pm, the BBA will host a Zoom discussion titled “SJC Roundup: Key Decisions from September 2024 – June 2025”, with Anna Lumelsky, Christine Fimognari, Jamie Charles, and Jeff Pyle summarizing the most recent year of SJC decisions, describing the effects of those decisions, and assessing larger trends in recent SJC opinions. The speakers will also describe for practitioners the impact that the SJC’s newest justices have had on the Court. It’s not too late to register!
Judicial Appointments, Confirmations & Nominations
Trial Court Appoints Judge Brian Dunn to Lead Probate & Family Court
With Probate & Family Court Chief Justice John Casey having announced his retirement—to take effect in July after seven years in the top post—the Trial Court named Judge Brian Dunn as his replacement. A graduate of Suffolk University Law School who started his legal career in 1992 as a solo practitioner concentrating on civil litigation, Judge Dunn was appointed to the Probate & Family Court in 2013 and currently serves as First Justice in the Court’s Suffolk Division.
Three Judges Confirmed to Superior Court
Judge Charles Groce III has been an associate justice on the District Court for 13 years and is currently First Justice in the Westfield courthouse, as well as the presiding justice of the Court Assisted Supervised Treatment Program—a specialty court aimed at reducing recidivism by promoting rehabilitation, treatment, and healing for those affected by substance-use disorder—in the Springfield courthouse. Groce is also an adjunct professor at UMass-Amherst and was previously a criminal defense attorney at his own firm for 13 years.
Attorney Jeffrey Trapani, a partner with Pierce Davis & Perritano LLP in Holyoke, has represented individuals, public officials and employees, and municipalities in the defense of personal-injury, employment-discrimination, and civil-rights cases for nearly two decades. He previously served as a Suffolk County ADA and a Law Clerk with the Juvenile Court. Attorney Trapani, a graduate of New England Law | Boston, has also sat on the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers, the Joint Bar Committee, and the SJC Standing Advisory Committee on the Rules of Civil Procedure.
Judge Asha Z. White was appointed to the District Court in 2021 and served as the First Justice of the Woburn District Court since July of 2024. From 2004 to 2021, he gained vast trial experience working as both a prosecutor and a defense attorney in the BMC, District Court, and Superior Court, including time as Deputy Chief of the AG’s Criminal Bureau. Judge White previously worked as an Assistant Clerk Magistrate of the Dorchester Division of the BMC and as a civil litigator with the City of Boston Law Department. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Suffolk University since 2008, teaching courses on the criminal-justice system and the sociology of law. A former President of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association, Judge White is an alumnus of Boston College and Northeastern University School of Law.
Two Judges Appointed to District Court
Patrick Burke was a Trial Attorney and Partner at Burke Levy, PC, since 2017 handling criminal matters in the Superior, District, and Juvenile Courts, while also representing clients in Probate & Family Court. A graduate of UMass-Amherst and the Massachusetts School of Law, he previously served as an Assistant District Attorney in Worcester County, prosecuting felonies and misdemeanors in District Court. During his career of primarily courtroom work, he tried hundreds of jury cases to verdict.
Ed Karcasinas served as the First Assistant District Attorney for the Middle District for nearly two decades, responsible for assisting with investigations and prosecutions of serious felony cases and supervising more than 150 employees. He was also the primary liaison for New England Organ Bank, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and other state agencies on behalf of the Office of the District Attorney, and he has taught classes at Clark University on the criminal-justice system since 2006. Karcasinas is a graduate of the New England School of Law.
Governor Nominates Three for District Court, One for Superior Court
Superior Court
Amy L. Karangekis has been the Regional Chief of the Western Massachusetts Division of the Attorney General’s Office in Springfield since 2018, responsible for the overall supervision, management and direction of the largest regional office. She has overseen attorneys and staff in both Civil and Criminal Divisions, and has represented the Commonwealth in criminal prosecutions, including human trafficking, organized crime, gaming enforcement, and enterprise and major crimes. Prior to joining AGO in 2008, Karangekis was a contract attorney for law firms in Massachusetts and Maine, assisting on civil and criminal cases in state and federal courts, and she was an Adjunct Professor of Legal Research and Writing at New England School of Law, as well as a law clerk to the Honorable Judith A. Cowin of the SJC, the late Honorable J. Harold Flannery of the Massachusetts Appeals Court, and justices of the Massachusetts Superior Court.
District Court
Brian Doxtader has been First Assistant Clerk Magistrate in the West Roxbury Division of the BMC since April 2024, after serving as an Assistant Clerk Magistrate for nearly a decade. In these roles, he has been responsible for conducting small-claims hearings, civil motor-vehicle hearings and show-cause hearings, and for reviewing search warrants and criminal complaints for probable cause. Prior to that, he served as an Assistant District Attorney in Middlesex County, where he was the Lowell Regional District Court Supervisor, responsible for overseeing the administration and management of attorneys in the Lowell District Court, Lowell Juvenile Court, and the Ayer District Court. As an Assistant District Attorney, he also prosecuted a wide range of criminal cases in the District Court and the Superior Court. Doxtader has a J.D. from Boston College Law School.
Suzanne McDonough has been Deputy Legal Counsel with the Administrative Office of the District Court since 2022, advising the Chief Justice, Justices, and Clerk Magistrates on legal, ethical, and policy issues, and has developed curriculum, training materials and legal bulletins to support clerks and judges on best practices. Previously, she defended clients as a solo practitioner in trial and appellate criminal matters after a dozen years as an Assistant District Attorney in Plymouth County, where she first served in the District Court and later moved to prosecuting murder, rape, child sexual assault, arson, drug, and other major felony cases in the Superior Court, and later worked in the Appeals Unit where she argued before the Massachusetts Appeals Court and Supreme Judicial Court. She holds a B.A. and J.D. from Boston College.
Liza Williamson has been the Clerk Magistrate of the Edgartown District Court for over twenty years, presiding over small-claims trials, issuing search warrants, conducting bail hearings, and serving as the administrative head for the Court. She previously had a private general-law practice that focused on civil and criminal defense matters in the Superior, District and Juvenile Courts, after serving as an Assistant District Attorney in Suffolk County and in Middlesex County. She graduated from UMass-Amherst and from Suffolk University Law School.
BBA Asks Trial Court to Maintain PFC Management Structure
BBA President Matt McTygue sent a letter to leadership of the Trial Court and the Probate & Family Court (PFC), asking that PFC sessions clerks remain under the oversight of that Court’s Chief Justice, through the First Justice at each courthouse. Registers of Probate at the PFC have requested that the sessions clerks be assigned under their management. The BBA has spoken out before against a bill that would have achieved this as part of a broader change to the PFC management structure (instead supporting compromise legislation to enhance resources for Registers), but as our letter states,
“The BBA is concerned that a change would produce greater turnover of staff … thereby introducing severe disruption to an already overloaded system and, in turn, negatively affecting litigants’ access to justice.”
Healey Appoints New Chair of the JNC
Last week, Governor Maura Healey announced that she was appointing Kathy Henry to replace Abim Thomas as Chair of the Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC). Henry, a former trustee of the Boston Bar Foundation, has sat on the Commission since 2023 and was previously Vice Chair. At the same time, Asha Santos and Mark Shaughnessy were named Vice Chairs. Thomas, a former BBA Council member, had been Chair since 2023. Also departing the JNC after two terms was current BBA Vice President Mark Fleming. Chair Henry is Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Chief Human Resources Officer of Eastern Bankshares, Inc., and Eastern Bank. Vice Chair Shaughnessy is the Managing Partner at Boyle | Shaughnessy Law, and Vice Chair Santos is the Office Managing Shareholder at Littler Mendelson P.C. where she oversees the daily operations of three law offices–including practice management, administrative functions, and client services.
ICE Enforcement Expands, Including at Courthouses
In the context of widespread reporting on sweeping expansions of immigration enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), we are particularly troubled by news last week of such arrests being conducted outside courthouses in Massachusetts. The BBA has long opposed this tactic: In 2018, we filed a letter in support of two District Attorneys who had sued to block this enforcement approach, out of concern that it “significantly impair[s] the ability of the Commonwealth to ensure access to our courts and fair administration of justice for all our residents.” We later issued Immigration Principles that reiterated this position and decried the impact “when those seeking legal status are arrested by immigration authorities while attending necessary immigration interviews”—another tactic that has been employed of late.
Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell issued general guidance on immigration enforcement in response, including background on the process and answers to FAQ’s.
Opportunities for Comment on Rule Changes
The Standing Advisory Committee on the Rules of Appellate Procedure is requesting public comments on four sets of changes to those rules, with a deadline of August 6.
And the Probate & Family Court is requesting public comments on a proposed overhaul of the entire Rules of Domestic Relations Procedure, with a June 30 deadline.
Budget Update
During its debate on the state budget, the State Senate voted to adopt two floor amendments that the BBA supported. The first increases the Trial Court’s appropriation by $7.2 million. The second not only adds $4.3 million to the CPCS operations line-item but would also increase the hourly compensation rates for bar advocates taking homicide cases and certain others. Unfortunately, the third amendment we were advocating for, to provide another $1 million for civil legal aid, was withdrawn, leaving MLAC level-funded at $51 million. A final Fiscal Year 2026 state budget will next be worked out by a House-Senate conference committee, and we will be urging those members for support on these and other BBA priority items.
I’m off for now, but I’ll meet you back here next time. By then, the US Supreme Court will have presumably wrapped up its regular term, and if precedent holds, Susman Godfrey will have obtained relief from the one law-firm executive order that’s still being litigated. In the meantime, you can always find updates from the BBA on LinkedIn and Bluesky, and from me on Bluesky.
