Issue Watch #24 – Immigration, Legislation & Other Legal Developments

Talk about your good-news/bad-news updates! On immigration alone, there is more worrying news about deportations of individuals previously covered by TPS status and interference with the Immigration Court in Massachusetts—but also a bill before the Governor that includes critical protections for immigrant communities. Elsewhere below: judicial confirmations and nominations, which are always great news for the applicants and their families…

Immigration Updates

By now, you’ve surely heard that time has run out for thousands of immigrants in Massachusetts after the Supreme Court blessed the federal government’s termination of protections under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. We opposed that ruling, but the deportations it paved the way for may now begin, with Massachusetts a prime target because of its large concentration of Haitian community members previously protected by TPS.
Yet another judge has departed the Immigration Court bench in Massachusetts, and if descriptions of this as a firing are accurate, it is only the latest among many across the nation as the Administration continues to exert political pressure on—and purge—immigration judges. (Please do not get me started on the need for this to be an Article 1 court, free from direct executive-branch influence, because I will ride that hobby-horse across the remainder of this newsletter.)
Where was I? Yes, the ACLU of Massachusetts has brought suit against the federal government, arguing that the apparent deployment of active-duty military personnel as Immigration Court judges raises serious constitutional questions. The lawsuit seeks public records and alleges that several personnel are already hearing cases in Massachusetts.
At the same time, the US Department of Homeland Security issued a new rule further restricting due process by allowing officers to bypass asylum interviews if they determine that an applicant doesn’t merit one. Instead, those applicants would be placed on a fast track to Immigration Court.
Ever heard of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court? Neither had I until last month. It was established by Congress in 1996 to consider efforts to deport non-citizens on terrorism grounds but had never heard a case until the federal government filed an application there in July.

Now, if you’re looking for some good news on immigration, check out my summary of some Protect Act provisions in the legislative wrap-up…

Legislative Wrap-Up (with a *)

In the closing days of the formal portion of the Legislature’s 2025-26 session (but see directly below*), the two houses reached agreement on a compromise version of the Protect Act addressing threats to Massachusetts residents from overly aggressive federal immigration enforcement. I am pleased to report that the final bill includes all three provisions that the BBA advocated for:

Language prohibiting warrantless civil arrests not only inside courthouses but also in the surrounding curtilage.
Strengthened guarantees on information about right to counsel for individuals detained in state facilities, as well as provisions ensuring the sanctity of their attorney-client communications.
A requirement of 48 hours’ notice from employers to their workers when they learn that federal authorities intend to conduct an immigration audit.

At the time of writing, this bill is on Governor Maura Healey’s desk, and I hope she’ll sign it into law.

*Under new legislative rules this session, work can continue on bills referred to conference committee. I am keeping a close eye on one such bill—an economic-development package that includes a measure of importance to our Trusts & Estates section: Thanks to an amendment from Sen. John Keenan, the Senate version clarifies that the power to create a trust may be exercised by an agent under a power of attorney, if expressly authorized. I will join other groups supporting this change in urging the committee to retain it in the final bill.

Other legislation can still advance the remainder of the year in an informal session—if there’s no opposition—which is an approach we are still pursuing with at least a couple of BBA priority bills that are still alive.

News from the Courts

Confirmations to the District Court

Raquel Webster, secretary of the Boston Bar Foundation, for a seat on the Massachusetts District Court bench. Webster, who previously sat on the BBA Council, has been Senior Commercial Litigation Counsel at National Grid for four years, representing the company in a wide range of civil commercial litigation matters and internal investigations, after a decade as Senior Regulatory Counsel there. Before that, she was Senior Corporation Counsel in the City of Boston Law Department, where she represented the city in state and federal court in tort and employment cases. She began her legal career as a litigation associate at Bingham McCutcheon LLP in Boston, focused on representing clients in commercial litigation and securities matters. In addition to her role with the BBF, Raquel is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association, Northeastern University School of Law Alumni Association, and Stone House. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston College and a J.D. from Northeastern.

Since 2014, Thomas Johnson has served as an Assistant Clerk-Magistrate in the Roxbury Division of the Boston Municipal Court, where he conducts show-cause hearings, reviews search-warrant applications, assists judges in managing courtroom sessions, and helps court users navigate the system. He was previously an Assistant Attorney General in the AGO’s Fair Labor Division, responsible for enforcing state labor laws, including non-payment of wages, overtime, minimum wage, and child labor laws, and before that operated a solo practice in which he represented clients in both civil and criminal matters in the District and Superior Courts. He began his career as an ADA in Worcester County, prosecuting cases in the District and Juvenile Courts. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Suffolk University Law School.

Confirmation to the BMC

Connie Wong was most recently the Deputy Commissioner for Labor Relations, Human Resources & Legal Affairs at the Boston Fire Department, providing legal counsel on employment, labor, and administrative matters; drafting and reviewing policies and legal agreements; developing legal-training programs; and overseeing legal support and human-resources functions. Previously, she served for more than a decade in the Suffolk Superior Court, as an Assistant Clerk and then Trial Magistrate in the Criminal Session. In these roles, she presided over arraignments, bail hearings, discovery matters, and probation-surrender hearings, and she issued findings and rulings, managed criminal trial dockets and advised on criminal procedure while supervising courtroom and clerical staff. Attorney Wong previously was Assistant Corporation Counsel in the City of Boston Law Department, representing the City in court and administrative proceedings and was in private practice with the Law Office of Paul M. Yee, assisting with real estate, business, landlord-tenant and probate matters. She holds degrees from Boston College and Suffolk University Law School.

Nomination to the BMC

Keith J. Nicholson is a civil litigator and criminal-defense attorney who has maintained his own practice for 30 years, representing individuals, businesses and law-enforcement professionals throughout Massachusetts, handling all aspects of representation from client intake and discovery through motion practice, settlement negotiations, arbitration, administrative proceedings and trial. He has also represented indigent defendants in the BMC through Suffolk Lawyers for Justice and serves as counsel to the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association and the New England Police Benevolent Association, representing police officers and correctional officers in arbitration proceedings, civil-service hearings, and criminal prosecutions. Previously, in the Trial Division of the Massachusetts AG’s Office, he conducted investigations, discovery, and legal research in a broad range of criminal and civil matters. Attorney Nicholson is a graduate of Providence College and New England School of Law.

Nominations to the Superior Court

Christopher Spring has operated a private practice for the past 20 years, focused on representing individuals in a broad range of criminal matters in the District and Superior Courts and the Appeals Court. He has tried over 150 cases to verdict and has argued six cases in the Appeals Court. Prior to entering private practice, Attorney Spring was a litigation associate at Morrison Mahoney, where he represented insurance carriers and self-insured entities in medical malpractice, premises liability, and motor-vehicle litigation. He began his career as an ADA in Middlesex County, where he investigated and presented felony matters to the grand jury and prosecuted a broad range of criminal cases in the District and Superior Courts. He handled cases involving violent crime, drug trafficking, firearms offenses, operating under the influence, domestic violence, and other serious criminal matters. Attorney Spring earned a B.A. from the University of New Hampshire and a J.D. from Notre Dame Law School.

Lynn Feigenbaum has served as an ADA in Suffolk County for over two decades. As Chief of the Major Felony Bureau since 2019, she supervises a team of attorneys and staff responsible for complex felony cases and oversees their investigation and prosecution of violent crimes. She has also served as Chief of the Motor Vehicle Homicide Unit, and in the Roxbury Division of the BMC, the Juvenile Unit, the Major Felony Unit, the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Unit, and the Senior Trial Unit. Her diverse experience includes grand-jury investigations and prosecutions involving homicides, sexual assaults, domestic violence, and other violent offenses. She is a graduate of Northwestern University and Northeastern University Law School.

Confirmation to the Probate & Family Court

Alison Silber has been a domestic-relations litigator, conciliator, and mediator, who established a private family-law practice in 2011 and in 2014 moved it to Western Massachusetts, with a focus on all aspects of domestic-relations law, including divorce, post-divorce modification, contempt, adoption, assisted-reproductive technology, child custody, and child-support matters. She regularly represented children as Guardian/Next Friend and through the Children’s Law Project, and she was one of the founding mediators of the Family Resolutions Specialty Court. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Maryland Carey School of Law.

Nomination to the Probate & Family Court

Lisa McCormack is an experienced probate and family-law attorney with extensive expertise in probate administration, guardianships, conservatorships, trusts, adoptions, and civil litigation. For more than a decade, she has been a Judicial Case Manager and MUPC Magistrate in the Berkshire Probate & Family Court, where she provides legal and procedural guidance to the Justices, reviews complex probate and family-law matters, assists in drafting judicial decisions, oversees judicial staff and facilitates dispute intervention in high-conflict probate and equity cases. She also works closely with self-represented litigants, attorneys, guardians ad litem, and court personnel to ensure the efficient administration of justice. Before that, Attorney McCormack was a Senior Associate at Cain Hibbard & Myers, P.C., with a concentration in health-care law, medical-malpractice defense, mental-health litigation, guardianships and conservatorships, employment and commercial litigation, and real-estate disputes. She also practiced bankruptcy law at Kressler & Kressler, P.C., and served as a judicial intern for the US District Court for the District of Connecticut. Attorney McCormack earned a B.A. from Smith College and a J.D. from Western New England College School of Law.

Follow-Up on Commonwealth v. Watson

After we reported on the SJC’s decision in Commonwealth v. Watson—ruling that the state’s law on post-conviction forensic testing extended to cell-phone analysis—Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly covered the case in-depth, with a quote from our own Criminal Law section co-chair Alyssa T. Hackett of Peachy Hackett & Sunderland LLP:

[D]igital evidence, “for better or worse, has become a powerful and ubiquitous piece of evidence that reveals location information, communications, payments, search history and a myriad of details that could prove essential evidence that the defendant was wrongfully convicted.”

Follow-Up on Law-Firm Executive Orders

As we await a ruling from the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on four law firms’ challenge to Presidential executive orders that targeted each of them, one of those firms, Susman Godfrey, is in the Department of Justice’s cross-hairs in a separate lawsuit filed by the ABA against what it terms the Trump administration’s “ongoing unlawful policy of intimidation against lawyers and law firms.” Susman is representing the ABA, but DOJ has asked the judge to remove them as counsel in the case. The parties are also dueling over discovery of communications related to the orders and DOJ subpoenas issued to 14 firms.

IOLTA Updates

Challenges to IOLTA programs continue: This spring, the First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of a lawsuit arguing that Maine’s system violated First and Fourteenth Amendment rights against compelled speech. It’s not difficult to see how such a claim could’ve been filed in other states, including Massachusetts, so we were pleased by this decision!
Fortunately, we seem to be more immune from the type of threat that the IOLTA program is facing in North Carolina, where the legislature effectively cut off IOLTA funding for civil legal aid and redirected most of that revenue toward indigent criminal defense. We are protected from this type of attack on IOLTA, both because the SJC had the foresight in 1985 to insulate the system from direct legislative involvement and because, in any event, our own lawmakers have been so supportive of civil legal aid.

I’m going back to my opening good-news/bad-news theme to sneak in some hopeful news for participants in the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, as the federal court in Boston struck down a Department of Education regulation, set to have taken effect on July 1, that would have allowed the Secretary to narrow eligibility by excluding employees of organizations engaged in activities she deemed to have a “substantially illegal purpose.”