Lawyers Journal

After an impassioned debate, the House of Delegates voted unanimously to support a civil Gideon resolution, urging the state to provide legal counsel to low income people in civil matters involving basic human needs. The debate highlighted the May 23 meeting, held in Springfield, in which MBA President Mark D Mason symbolically passed the gavel to President-elect David W. White Jr., whose term officially begins Sept. 1.

ichard Clarke, best-selling author and senior White House advisor for more than a decade, will be the keynote speaker at the MBA Gala Dinner on Thursday, Nov. 1 at the InterContinental on Boston’s Waterfront. Clarke, the nation’s former counterterrorism chief, served under seven presidents and spent three decades fighting terrorism. In 2004, after leaving the White House, Clarke wrote The New York Times bestseller “Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror.”

 The Equality Commission, a collaborative effort of the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Women’s Bar Association and the Boston Bar Association, released the results from a study entitled, “Women Lawyers and Obstacles to Leadership” on May 2. The study examined both genders’ ascension to make partner in law firms and was conducted by the MIT Workplace Center. The commission is the brainchild of the Hon. Nancy Gertner of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Commission representatives from the WBA, MBA and BBA turned to Mona Harrington, program director at the MIT Workplace Center, an expert on work-family research, to lead this eye-opening study.