The Juvenile & Child Welfare Section Council is proud to announce this year’s recipient of the Annual Juvenile and Child Welfare Award, Maryellen Cuthbert, who is truly one of Youth Advocacy Division’s “heroes of the bar.” The award will be presented at the Seventh Annual Juvenile & Child Welfare Conference on Friday, June 14, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., at the UTEC Center, located at 35 Warren St. in Lowell.
Cuthbert has spent over four decades in private practice as a tireless fighter for the rights of indigent youth in both criminal and civil cases. She is a member of eight Committee for Public Counsel Services panels, including the Superior Court, Youthful Offender, and Children and Family Law panels, and she has demonstrated remarkable creativity, courage and tenacity in fighting for her clients’ rights and needs, not only in the courtroom, but also in their lives.
Cuthbert also has a flair for making legal trainings informative, fun and tasty. Her trainings at her home are legendary — she brings the entire community of private and public attorneys, judges and other professionals into her home for outstanding trainings and equally mind-blowing meals. She also manages to squeeze trainings into every available hour of the day — her one-hour “brown bag” trainings on specific legal issues usually include her provision of enough pizza, salad and dessert to feed the entire county.
Cuthbert works around the clock, not only to provide her own clients with cutting-edge representation, but also to ensure that all attorneys in Massachusetts have access to her as a resource, as a colleague, and as a leader in the community. As she winds down her practice, she definitively deserves the MBA Juvenile Section award.
Juvenile & Child Welfare Section Council Chair Judge Jay Blitzman adds, “For 40 years, Mary Ellen Cuthbert has zealously represented countless numbers of clients in juvenile and child protection proceedings. The range of her practice is beyond impressive, encompassing representation in virtually every trial court department. Her passion and tenacity in the courtroom is unrivaled, as is her commitment in her role as a mentor and resource for attorneys all over the state. It is with great pleasure that I announce that Mary Ellen Cuthbert is the recipient of this year's Juvenile Justice & Child Welfare Award.”
Conference information
At the conference, join youth and special needs advocates, court representatives, private-practice attorneys, and employees of state agencies to discuss important recent decisions and legal trends in the field of juvenile and child welfare.
This year's keynote speaker will be Tatiana Rodriguez, founder of Family Matters First (FMF), which strengthens families by providing legal tools, peer support, advocacy and mutual aid to end the separation of Black, Brown and low-income families. FMF holds monthly peer support groups, legal workshops, advocacy meetings, protests, documentary storytelling, surveys and community partnerships. FMF partners with numerous local organizations, including Harvard Law School, the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, Mass. General Hospital, JMAC for Families, UPenn Law School and Rutgers Law School. Rodriguez is a first-generation, Afro-Latina college graduate in social science. Rodriguez’s firsthand experience with the foster care system and advocacy groups led her to found FMF in 2020 to organize other impacted families.
Do not miss this exclusive opportunity to network with colleagues, program faculty, and the leaders of the juvenile and child welfare bar.
Additional faculty and agenda items to be announced.
Special pricing of $50 is available for practitioners on the CAFL, YAD, and Mental Health Litigation Division panels. Call MBA Member Services to register at (617) 338-0530.
Registration for the conference is required by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, June 11.
Register