The BC Law and greater Boston community lost a legend on Tuesday morning, as Francis “Frank” X. Bellotti ‘52 passed away at the age of 101.
The Arbella Insurance Company co-founder, former Massachusetts attorney general, and three-time gubernatorial candidate was a force in state politics for decades. He was also incredibly influential at the Law School, where the school’s loan repayment and forgiveness program was named after him with a $3 million gift in 2010 from Arbella directors and others. The program has helped countless young graduates who otherwise couldn’t afford to stay in their jobs continue to help people most in need, and helps support the Jesuit mission of the University—vision, justice, and charity—that attracts so many students to the Law School. “A lot of us, myself included, feel that Frank built a wonderful legacy, being both an excellent lawyer and an excellent lawyer committed to protecting people and working in the public service,” said Arbella CEO John Donohue at the time of the program’s founding. “We thought it was important to tell that story to Boston College Law School graduates.”
Bellotti grew up in a Dorchester blue-collar neighborhood determined to influence the local political landscape. He ran for office nine times—once for district attorney, once for lieutenant governor, three times for governor, and four times for attorney general, winning four of those elections (three for attorney general and one for lieutenant governor). He also became the nation’s first lieutenant governor to run against his own boss (then sitting Democratic governor Endicott Peabody) in his first gubernatorial bid in 1964. As AG, Bellotti was known for fighting corruption and championing civil rights, and his office was often used as a model for others around the US. In addition to co-founding Arbella and serving as vice chairman, he also had considerable influence as a member of the law firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo.
As attorney general, Bellotti often told his staff, “We work for the citizens of the Commonwealth.” He called himself and his assistant attorneys general the “people’s lawyers” and took that responsibility seriously, reorganizing the entire office so that it was geared as much toward protecting the public—with new antitrust, civil rights, and consumer protection divisions—as it was toward defending the government. And if Bellotti had to choose between the two, protecting the public or the government, he often sided with the citizens.
“Frank was a champion of the little guy,” said Tom Kiley, a prominent trial attorney in Boston who served as Bellotti’s first assistant attorney general for ten years. “We wrote laws and created programs that…put the attorney general in the role of representing the people in a more direct way.” As an example, Bellotti created insurance and utilities divisions to fight against higher insurance premiums and rising public utility rates. “He established a Civil Rights Division and wrote statutes that gave them some real authority,” added Kiley.
“Frank went into politics because he loves people and stayed because it was a noble calling,” said former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, a Bellotti protégé.
After high school, Bellotti joined the Navy, in 1942, and served overseas with the elite Scouts and Raiders, the forerunners of the Navy Seals. When he returned from the war, he attended Tufts University, graduating in 1947, then worked as a lifeguard and swimming instructor in Florida, where he met his wife, Maggi. They married a year later and returned to New England, where Bellotti worked as a lingerie and hosiery salesman before deciding to attend BC Law. Graduating in 1952, Bellotti was sixth in his class of 145, which was quite an accomplishment considering he’d had to juggle school and full-time work to support his growing family. Eventually, Bellotti started a law firm with a classmate and established himself as one of the area’s most go-to attorneys before his first bid for public office.
Bellotti won the seat of Lieutenant Governor in 1962. Despite his father’s constant campaigning, his son Michael Bellotti says he always made time for his wife and their children. “With twelve kids, he wasn’t the coach of the basketball team, but if you needed him, he was there,” said Michael in a BC Law Magazine 2010 story.
After his failed bid against Peabody in 1964, Bellotti ran for attorney general in 1966 and for governor again in 1970. He lost both races, but in 1974 he ran for AG again, and this time won his first of three consecutive terms as the state’s top lawyer.
Early on, Bellotti let people know it would no longer be business as usual in his office. He relocated the AG’s headquarters from the State House to a nearby government building, which helped reinforce the idea that this was the people’s law firm—and not state officials’. Bellotti professionalized the office in numerous ways, most notably by requiring all members of his staff to refrain from outside law practice and devote themselves full-time to the state’s legal work. Bellotti also would not allow anyone in his office to contribute to his campaigns.
After his decision to step down as AG in 1986, Bellotti thought he was finished with politics—until his bid for governor in 1990. Bellotti wanted to give the state’s highest office one more shot. This time, though, the electoral tides were against him. Out of nowhere, then-Boston University President John Silber, a political neophyte, ended up winning the primary. Massachusetts had slid into a recession, and anti-incumbent fever had spread across the state. (Silber, however, ultimately lost to Republican Bill Weld, Bellotti’s old protégé.)
Despite his defeat, Bellotti’s career was far from over. Two years before, he’d helped form Arbella Insurance Group after a major insurance company had pulled out of the state’s automobile insurance market. Worried that people would lose their jobs and that the companies that remained would reap unfair profits, Bellotti and Donohue formed a mutual insurance company owned by policyholders, where he served in leadership roles for many years.
Bellotti’s legacy extends far beyond the AG’s office and Arbella. Many of his former protégés are now law veterans, working as judges, trial lawyers, and other types of professionals who continue to have a major impact on people’s daily lives. As attorney general, Bellotti considered himself a loyal servant to the Commonwealth, and he approached his job with a deep sense of gratitude. “There will, I am sure, be better attorneys general than I, but there will never be one who cares more about you than I do,” Bellotti told his audience at the Massachusetts Democratic Party Convention in 1986. “In a short while, I will be leaving office, but tonight I want you to know how grateful I am to you and to the people of my state. With all the hard times, I would not have missed it, or you, for the world.”
For more on Bellotti’s life and legacy, see the obituary from The Boston Globe.