My office window overlooks a pretty courtyard surrounded by BC Law’s Stuart House, East Wing, and Library, and if I get close to the sill and look to the left, there’s a pathway toward the future. This campus vantage point is much like BC Law Magazine, a place to look upon the people whose promise is cultivated within the Law School’s surrounds and who are launched into democracy’s tomorrows.
A perfect example. Professors Bob Bloom ’71 and Mark Brodin retired in June, each with impressive statistics: Bloom spent 53 years, Brodin 43, teaching an estimated 8,000 students each. Their colorful personalities, civil procedure know-how, and astute mentorships provide a long-running perspective on the school’s history and academic depth. Many readers will see their own experiences in the story.
The faculty’s impact is also visible in an article elsewhere in this issue. One of Brodin’s long-ago students, David Yannetti ’89, was a lead defense attorney in the sensational case of Karen Read, who was charged in 2022 with killing her boyfriend by backing into him with her SUV. The case made its way into a Massachusetts courtroom twice, in 2024 ending in a mistrial, in 2025 with an acquittal. For assistance in the latter trial, Yannetti reached out to Brodin, who helped him recruit four students for his defense team. Not only was Yannetti’s legal acumen a key to Read’s success, so were the students’ skills. And their experience changed them in ways they hadn’t imagined—perhaps it could be called the BC Law way.
Alongside its respect for the rule of law, the school is unwavering in its commitment to humanitarian goals. When BC Law’s Civil Rights Clinic learned last year of the Massachusetts governor’s multimillion-dollar proposal for construction at the state’s women’s prison, student attorneys interviewed a number of those serving time and learned of their concerns over whether a focus on their lives behind bars and their futures might be a wiser investment. The activity was yet another opportunity for the magazine to share how several clinics in the Center for Experiential Learning, as well as alumni working in nonprofits and agencies across the land, are reforming the nation’s understanding of incarceration.
On many other fronts, there are high-achieving alumni—Steve Wright ’81 in finance, Leann Walsh ’11 in labor and employment law, Law Day honorees, the list goes on—each of whom provides a view in these pages of what it means to be part of Boston College Law School.
Vicki Sanders, Editor
vicki.sanders@bc.edu