Kimberly S. Budd, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC), will be the keynote speaker for Boston College Law School’s 2022 Commencement. The event will take place on May 27 in BC’s Conte Forum.
Chief Justice Budd was nominated by Governor Baker to fill the seat after the death of former Chief Justice Ralph Gants in 2020. She is the first Black woman to serve as Chief Justice of the MA SJC. Similarly, her father, Boston College graduate Wayne Budd, in 1989 became the first African American appointed to serve as US Attorney for Massachusetts. He is also a former adjunct professor at BC Law.
Chief Justice Budd has a long and distinguished record of public service. She served as law clerk to Chief Justice Joseph P. Warner of the Massachusetts Appeals Court and worked in private practice at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo before becoming Assistant US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.
She then spent time in the General Counsel’s Office at Harvard University, and as Director of the Community Values program at Harvard Business School, before becoming Associate Justice for the Massachusetts Superior Court.
Chief Justice Budd was named to the SJC in 2016. She has also taught at both New England Law and Harvard Law School.