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Secretary Bennett addresses House of Delegates

Thursday, Apr. 2, 2015
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Photo Credit: Jason Scally
Secretary of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security Daniel Bennett speaks to members of the MBA’s House of Delegates in Marlborough

The Massachusetts Bar Association's House of Delegates (HOD) held its latest meeting in Marlborough on March 26, at the Courtyard Boston Marlborough hotel, where they welcomed Massachusetts Secretary of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security Daniel Bennett as guest speaker. Bennett, appointed in January by Governor Charlie Baker, addressed the issue of attorney searches at state correctional facilities in Massachusetts, following a Boston Globe story that detailed invasive searches of female attorneys during client visits at MCI-Norfolk.

Led by President-elect Robert W. Harnais, the meeting also featured updates from MBA officers, including Treasurer Jeffrey N. Catalano, who announced that the Scholarship Committee had chosen the first recipient of the MBA's Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Scholarship after receiving applications from every law school in the state. The MBA will present the scholarship to the winner on May 7 at the MBA's Annual Dinner.

During the meeting, the HOD also took the following action:

  • Voted to support in principle legislation that would increase compensation amounts related to scarring and disfigurement in workers' compensation cases;
  • Approved the nominees for the 2015 Access to Justice Awards; and
  • Referred to the MBA's Executive Management Board a Hampden County Bar Association proposal to return to a regionally based Judicial Nominating Commission.

You can read more about the March HOD in the April edition of Lawyers Journal, coming soon.

The next HOD meeting is scheduled for May 28 at the MBA's Boston office.