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Issue December 2009

MBA Juvenile & Child Welfare Section Co-Chair Martha Rush O'Mara has been appointed chair of the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corp.'s board of directors. MLAC is governed by an 11-member board of directors, 10 of whom are appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court. The eleventh is the chief justice for administration and management of the trial court or the judge's designee.

Rush O'Mara, who was nominated to the MLAC board by the MBA, is a solo practitioner who concentrates on child law in the Boston Juvenile Court and the Probate and Family Court. Rush O'Mara has served on the Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA) Committee since 2005.

Huston to chair foley hoag's trademark and copyright practice group

Intellectual property lawyer Julia Huston has joined Foley Hoag LLP as a partner in the firm's Intellectual Property Department to chair its Trademark and Copyright practice group.

Huston has experience as a trademark litigator, as well as counseling and strategy in a number of IP areas. As chair of the Trademark and Copyright practice group, Huston will be responsible for expanding the firm's existing practice in trademarks, copyrights, domain names and e-commerce.

She was previously chair of the Trademark Practice group at Sunstein, Kann, Murphy & Timbers in Boston.

Huston is currently president of Greater Boston Legal Services, the largest provider of civil legal aid to low-income families in New England, and is chair of the Equal Justice Coalition, which advocates for legal aid funding for the poor.

As a past-president of the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts and a former board member of YWCA Boston, Huston has advocated for gender and racial equality. She will receive a "Women of Justice" award from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly in December and was recently named by Law & Politics as one of the top women lawyers in Massachusetts and New England for the third year in a row. Huston also holds leadership roles in the Boston Bar Association and the International Trademark Association.

Lukey named first woman president of american college of trial lawyers

Boston attorney Joan A. Lukey became the first woman elected president of the American College of Trial Lawyers, an honorary association of 5,700 trial lawyers and judicial Fellows in the United States and Canada. She was installed as president at the group's annual meeting, which was held in Boston Oct. 10.

Lukey, a partner at Ropes & Gray LLP in Boston who focuses on complex business litigation, is expected to focus on such diverse issues as the vanishing jury trial and implementation of proposed principles to address delays in the civil justice system. She is the 60th president of the ACTL.

A Fellow of the ACTL since 1991, she was named chair of the Massachusetts State Committee in 1997, elected regent in 2002 and served as secretary in 2006 and treasurer in 2007.

Lukey is a past president of the Boston Bar Association and is active in other legal organizations. Since 1983, she has been consistently selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America.

She is a graduate of Smith College and Boston College Law School.