BC Law Professor R. Michael Cassidy, an expert in prosecutorial ethics, was appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in July to serve a four-year term on the Board of Bar Overseers (BBO). The board is the arm of the court that regulates, investigates, and disciplines attorneys in Massachusetts.
“I am honored to be selected by the court for this important position,” Cassidy said. “With a self-regulated bar, those of us who care deeply about the integrity of the legal profession need to be willing to step up and serve in an oversight role. I expect that my experiences on the BBO will enrich my teaching and research, and vice versa.”
The BBO is composed of twelve members, all appointed by the court. Eight are “attorney” members and four are “public citizen” members. Its current chair provides another BC Law connection; Marianne LeBlanc, a partner at Sugarman and Sugarman, is a 1993 graduate of the Law School.
Cassidy teaches and writes in the areas of Criminal Law, Evidence, and Professional Responsibilty. He is the author or co-author of three casebooks in the field of legal ethics, and his articles have appeared in a number of the nation’s top scholarly journals, among them Northwestern Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and the William & Mary Law Review.
Cassidy’s professional activities are also extensive and illustrative of his wide-ranging legal acumen. He has served as a member of the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission, the Governor’s Commission on Corrections Reform, the SJC’s Advisory Committee on Massachusetts Evidence Law, the SJC’s Standing Committee on the Rules of Professional Conduct, the Massachusetts Judicial Nominating Commission, and as an advisor to the National District Attorneys’ Association.
Other roles include editor-in-chief of the Massachusetts Law Review, legal consultant to the US Department of Justice on issues of police misconduct and prosecutorial ethics, and founding faculty director of BC Law’s Rappaport Center for Law & Public Policy. He received his JD degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.