The Massachusetts Bar Association will honor attorney Francis C. Morrissey with the MBA President’s Award at the 2018 MBA Annual Dinner on April 24. The President’s Award is bestowed upon those individuals who have made a significant contribution to the work of the MBA, to the preservation of MBA values, to the success of MBA initiatives, and to the promotion of the MBA leadership role within the legal community of Massachusetts.
Morrissey, a partner at Morrissey, Wilson & Zafiropoulos, is being honored for his role in the MBA’s Student Loan Bankruptcy Assistance Project, which launched this year. Recognizing that unmanageable student debt is a growing social problem in the commonwealth and that the students most likely to be eligible for an “undue hardship” discharge in bankruptcy will not have the resources to hire a trial lawyer, the MBA’s Student Loan Bankruptcy Assistance Project matches distressed student borrowers with attorneys and law firms willing to represent them on a pro bono basis in bankruptcy.
“Frank is a superb lawyer and a truly special person. He has done an incredible amount of good for our profession, and we are especially grateful for the dedication he has shown to the Massachusetts Bar Association over the years,” said MBA President Christopher P. Sullivan. “His strong leadership as chair of the MBA’s newly launched Student Loan Bankruptcy Assistance Project is indicative of the passion he brings to every endeavor. When it comes to the MBA, Frank is all-in, and our community is all the better for it.”
Long active in the MBA, Morrissey has served in a number of leadership roles in the organization. He is the current chair of the Complex Commercial Litigation Section’s Bankruptcy and Insolvency Litigation Committee, and he previously chaired the Business Law Section Council and served as an active member of the MBA’s House of Delegates. He is also an MBA delegate to the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates and a Massachusetts Bar Foundation fellow. In 2013, Morrissey led the MBA’s successful efforts to update Massachusetts’ version of Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, which governs secured transactions.
In addition to his MBA service, Morrissey teaches bankruptcy and commercial law at Boston University School of Law and New England Law | Boston. Morrissey has also served, by appointment of the Supreme Judicial Court, as vice chair of the Clients’ Security Board, and he recently started his third term as a hearing committee member for the Board of Bar Overseers.