Michelle Peirce ’90
Peirce was among five winners in the 2017 Circle of Excellence Awards bestowed by the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly upon professional exemplars in the legal community.
Co-chair of the litigation department at Donoghue Barrett & Singal, a Boston-based firm, Peirce was an executive editor of the Boston College Law Review. She received her BA from Georgetown in 1987.
The Law School was doubly honored when Elisabeth J. Medvedow, executive director of the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy at Boston College Law School, was also awarded a place in the Circle of Excellence.
Robert Ambrogi ’80
A longtime legal journalist and media consultant, Ambrogi will receive the Yankee Quill award this fall from the Academy of New England Journalists. Also being honored are WBUR “Here and Now” co-host Robin Young and historic figure James Franklin (brother of Benjamin), the 18th century author, journalist, and printer.
Ambrogi is the executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association (MNPA) and founder of the blog LawSites. He also writes the Media Law blog. He is being honored for serving as the founding editor of Lawyers USA and editor-in-chief of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Equally important, the academy said in a statement, is Ambrogi’s “relentless commitment to the public’s right to know through his blog posts and consulting and his successful efforts in overhauling the open meeting and public records law in Massachusetts as executive director of the MNPA.”
The Yankee Quill award, which recognizes New England journalists for their contributions to the betterment of journalism, is presented annually by the academy through the auspices of the New England Society of News Editors. The 2017 awards ceremony will take place in October.
Megan Carroll ’92, MCAS ’89
A former adjunct professor of business law at Boston College and founder of Carroll Associates, a law and specialty consulting firm of integrated solutions for the arts, Carroll joined financial services firm the Bulfinch Group as a financial specialist. Carroll has held leadership positions on a number of nonprofit boards in Boston, including the Boston Ballet Board of Overseers and the Young Leaders of the American Ireland Fund, and she is a founding life member of the Board of Governors of the Boston College Club.
For more, please see her profile page.
Brian Spero ’79
After serving in an executive capacity at Beacon Mutual Insurance Company in Providence, RI, for nine years, Spero was elected by the Board of Directors as president and CEO, effective July 1. Beacon provides workers’ compensation insurance to more than 12,000 Rhode Island businesses.
Prior to Beacon, Spero was a founding partner at Partridge Snow Hahn LLP and had practiced law in Providence since 1979. He is active in numerous business and civic organizations.
Stephen Boyajian ’05
Providence Business News recognized Robinson+Cole lawyer Boyajian as a “40 Under Forty” winner during the publication’s annual event July 20 at the Aldrich Museum. The honor recognizes the region’s brightest young leaders, innovators, and business professionals.
Boyajian is a member of Robinson + Cole’s business litigation group where he focuses on bankruptcy and creditor’s rights. He is also actively involved in many community ventures and is a town councilor in Barrington, RI, and a member of the town’s budget forecasting committee and chair of the ad hoc committee working on property tax relief to elderly and disabled residents. He regularly defends elderly Rhode Islanders confronted with unmanageable debts and abusive collection practices.
Jennifer Miller ’16 and Matthew Rogers ’14
Professor Father Frank Herrmann, SJ, ’77 married Miller and Rogers at the Parish of St. Ignatius of Loyola on June 17.
It was a BC Law gathering: Present in photograph from left to right: Amanda and Tony Dragga ’14; T. J. Bright ’14; Nicholas Poli ’14; Daniel Ruben’16; Rogers and Miller; Bryan Harrison ’16; John Lerner ’14; Daniel Fishman ’16; Emily Koruda ’16; Patrick Driscoll ’16; Jeff and Taryn Pike ’14; and Margaret Hickey ’14.
Not present in photograph: Hon. Kenneth Desmond ’90; Hon. Franco Gobourne ’93; James Hamrock ’77; Christopher Harvey ’86; Marcia Jackson ’84; Hon. Christine McEvoy (adjunct professor); Kelsey Meagher ’16; and Thomas O’Keefe ’82.
Emma Winger ’08
Winger was a participant in a July 24 Massachusetts court decision likely to have an impact on the enforcement of federal immigration laws. In a ruling thought to be the first in the nation to find that a person cannot be held by local law enforcement officials solely for immigration violations, the state Supreme Judicial Court essentially eased the pressure on sanctuary cities to cooperate with federal officials.
Winger, a staff attorney in the Immigration Impact Unit of the Committee for Public Counsel Services in Massachusetts, represented Streynuon Lunn, a Cambodian immigrant who had been held by a state court officer on an immigration detainer and transferred to federal custody after a larceny charge against him was dropped. Though Lunn was released before his appeal of the decision was heard, the SJC nevertheless determined to hear the case in order to establish procedures for the future.
When the ruling was announced, Winger told the Boston Globe that it “provides important guidance at a time when federal immigration authorities have dramatically expanded their enforcement efforts, threatening to interfere with our administration of justice.”
Read the full Globe story here.