Lawyers Journal
By Jennifer Rosinski
An amicus brief co-authored by Massachusetts Bar Association
Health Law Section Council member Lorianne Sainsbury-Wong was
mentioned in the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark health care decision
on the Affordable Care Act. The constitutionality of the act was
upheld in a 5-4 decision on June 28, ruling that individuals who
fail to obtain insurance must pay a tax penalty beginning in
2014.
By Tricia M. Oliver
Massachusetts Bar Association President Richard P. Campbell
oversaw a productive association year with regard to his
established priorities. Since last September, Campbell assembled a
task force to analyze the Massachusetts law economy; launched a
high profile awareness campaign for adequate court funding and
inserted the Massachusetts bar into discussions surrounding the
state's Gateway Cities.
By Kelsey Sadoff and Tricia M. Oliver
Martha Rush O'Mara, of the Law Office of Martha Rush O'Mara in
Melrose and Christopher P. Sullivan, partner of Robins, Kaplan,
Miller & Ciresi LLP in Boston, will join the returning MBA
officer slate as leaders for the 2012-13 year.
By Richard P. Campbell
Over the past 12 months or more, we have been soundly tested as
a profession. Just bring to mind some of the problems that have
manifested over that timeframe:
- The judiciary, so starved of financial support, closed some
courts, suspended normal operating hours in other courts such that
ordinary citizens could not get their business done when they
rightly expected to find the courts open (e.g., the lunch hour),
and lost some of our most experience trial judges to early
retirement as they chose to avoid the indignities of continued
service to the commonwealth without adequate financial
support.
- Predator businesses like "Notarios," holding themselves out as
experts in law, fed off the ignorance of unsophisticated clients in
Gateway Cities like Lawrence, New Bedford, Brockton and
Springfield, causing great damage to them.
- The nine in-state and seven area law schools, like a ruptured
gushing watermain converting an otherwise valuable resource into a
costly problem, kept spilling more than 1,500 unemployed and
unemployable newly minted graduates into the commonwealth's law
economy with little regard to the impact of their actions on those
new graduates or on our citizens and practicing lawyers.
- Hapless and hopeless, many newly admitted lawyers "hung a
shingle" without any practical experience or skills, thereby
choosing to experiment on unsuspecting clients, opposing counsel,
and the courts.