Two weeks ago, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) heard oral argument in Deweese-Boyd v. Gordon College, a case which tests the limits of the “ministerial exception” and the legal protection it provides for religious employers. CONTINUE READING ›
ZALKIND DUNCAN & BERNSTEIN LLP, a premier Boston criminal defense and civil litigation boutique, seeks an associate to start in fall 2021 or sooner. This progressive 13-lawyer law firm has a dynamic federal and state court practice, at both the trial and appellate levels. Our criminal defense practice includes crimes of violence, fraud and drug offenses, white collar crimes, and other felonies and misdemeanors. Our civil practice consists primarily of plaintiff-side employment matters (primarily discrimination cases), and representing students, faculty, and other employees accused of misconduct or facing discrimination at colleges and universities (including in Title IX proceedings). We also have a general civil litigation and complex motions practice.
We are looking for an associate with 1-2 years of experience and excellent research, analytical, and writing skills. Judicial clerkship a plus. Competitive benefits. More information about our firm can be found on our website: http://www.zalkindlaw.com.
Interested applicants should send their resume, law school transcript, writing sample (preferably 5-10 pages long, showing writing that has not been substantially edited or revised by anyone other than the author), and a cover letter to Zalkind Duncan & Bernstein LLP, 65a Atlantic Avenue, Boston, MA 02110, attn: Associate Hiring, or e-mail these items to resume@zalkindlaw.com with “application for associate position” in the subject line. Applicants who are available to begin employment before fall 2021 should include such information in their cover letters. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and should be submitted no later than February 19, 2021.
In a late-night session on the last night of the 191st General Court (our legislative session), the Massachusetts Legislature passed S. 2979, “An Act Relative to Sexual Violence on College Campuses.” This bill was the latest version of a bill that has been introduced, and had previously failed to pass, in every session since 2014.
We have previously written about prior versions of this bill (our blog posts can be found here, here, and here). My colleagues and I have also submitted testimony to the Legislature in both 2017 and 2019 about campus sexual assault and the need for transparent, fair processes for students. While the bill addresses a number of topics, including climate surveys, sexual misconduct training for students and employees, coordination with local law enforcement, and the information schools must post on their websites, I will focus here on what the law will require schools to do when they receive a complaint of sexual misconduct. If Governor Baker signs the bill, its changes will take effect on August 1, 2021.
In a landmark decision published last week, Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless v. Fall River, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) struck down G.L.c. 85, § 17A (often referred to as the anti-panhandling law) as an unconstitutional restriction on protected speech. This decision was hailed as a victory by community organizers and people who are houseless, who have long criticized the law for effectively criminalizing houselessness and poverty.
Section 17A imposed criminal penalties for any person who “signals a moving vehicle on any public way or causes the stopping of a vehicle thereon, or accosts any occupant of a vehicle … for the purpose of soliciting any alms, contribution or subscription or of selling any merchandise.” (emphasis added). However, the law permitted the same conduct for other purposes, like selling admissions tickets and newspapers. The law also explicitly exempted from regulation this same conduct when performed on behalf of a non-profit organization with a police permit. The law imposed a $50 fine for violators.
Plaintiffs John Correira and Joseph Treeful are both houseless and members of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, an organization that advocates for housing justice and provides direct services and assistance to people experiencing houselessness. Like many people who are houseless, Mr. Correira and Mr. Treeful sometimes stand on public streets and ask motorists and passersby for donations in order to survive. Between 2018 and 2019, the Fall River Police Department charged the two men with more than forty violations of Section 17A. Both Mr. Correira and Mr. Treeful have previously been incarcerated as a result of these charges.
By Lilly Gill, Law Student Intern
The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the relationships between employment, education, and family life as parents are juggling having their children home in remote education or otherwise having limited childcare, and other caregivers have needed to take care of elderly parents or disabled or sick relatives. In recent months, substantial evidence (examples abound, but a few are here, here, here, here, and here) has demonstrated that women are disproportionately taking on caregiving responsibilities during the pandemic. As a result, there are serious concerns that women are being pushed out of the workforce at higher rates than their male counterparts. While female workers may be particularly vulnerable to COVID-related job consequences, our practice has also received numerous inquiries from men who have sought time off, reduced schedules, or other accommodations to help take care of their children or elderly family. As the end of the year is approaching, the COVID-related protections passed by Congress earlier this year are expiring and therefore this may be the last chance for some employees to seek leave for child-care related needs. Moreover, employers may be making decisions regarding layoffs, performance reviews, promotions, and pay raises or bonuses, and may penalize employees with caregiving responsibilities based on gender-stereotypes that caregivers are unable to prioritize their work responsibilities. If employees face adverse career consequences due to their caregiving role, they may have multiple legal paths they can take to challenge those decisions.
Recently, in Commonwealth v. Davis, the Massachusetts Appeals Court determined that Massachusetts State Police officers coerced an individual to waive his Miranda rights when they arrested him after he attempted to exercise his constitutional right to counsel during an interrogation. CONTINUE READING ›
By: Amanda Gordon, Legal Intern
In Massachusetts, in limited circumstances a person’s criminal records can be available to a licensing board or prospective employer. However, there remains a societal responsibility to ensure that criminal charges do not unfairly stigmatize or disadvantage defendants who have served their sentence or were never convicted at all. The Supreme Judicial Court acknowledged this tension in Boston Globe v. DJCIS, and again in its recent decision, Doe v. Board of Registration in Medicine. In this most recent case, the Court carved out a unique loophole, allowing the Medical Board to use sealed criminal records of doctors for the purposes of disciplinary deliberation. Typically, sealed criminal records can only be accessed by a small number of entities: courts, law enforcement agencies, and a few others. Prior to the Court’s decision, the Board of Registration in Medicine did not ordinarily have access to these records.
Criminal records can be sealed in one of three ways: The first two (G. L. c. 276, §§ 100A and 100B) provide for automatic sealing of certain criminal records, upon request, after a required period has passed without any additional criminal convictions—currently three years for misdemeanors and seven years for most felonies. The third method (§ 100C) of sealing permits a former defendant, whose criminal case resulted in a nolle prosequi (abandonment of the case) or a dismissal, to seal their criminal record at any time upon a judge’s discretionary determination that “substantial justice would best be served” by such sealing, based on the standards set by the Supreme Judicial Court.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many parents are exploring new arrangements for education and childcare for their children. Families who can afford to are creating “micro-schools” or “school pods”—groups of a few families with similar-aged children who hire a teacher to provide lessons in the families’ homes. Others are simply looking to hire extra childcare help for children who are out of daycare or doing school remotely.
As schools revamp their Title IX policies by August 14 to comply with the recently-enacted federal regulations, information about how those policies might look is starting to come to light. In recent weeks, a number of schools have made clear that—as my colleague predicted when the regulations came out—while they will create policies to address conduct that falls under the federal 
regulations, they will also have policies that address sexual misconduct issues that fall outside of what the federal government regulates. Boston University recently offered some insight as to how it will approach sexual misconduct cases come fall. According to BU’s Title IX coordinator, Kim Randall, “[c]omplaints that fall under the new Title IX regulations, as noted above, will be investigated using the procedures required by the new regulations, which are very different from our existing procedures. Those complaints that do not fall under Title IX will be investigated using procedures similar to those currently in place.” Having two separate policies that address sexual misconduct is likely to raise a host of issues that schools need to plan for before imposing those policies on students and faculty. Looking at how cases may be handled under BU’s proposed policies illustrates the issues schools will face if they choose to have two different sexual misconduct procedures.
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