Janis M. Berry

Background

Janis M. Berry was born and raised in Everett, Massachusetts, a city in Middlesex County on the Mystic River, adjacent to Boston. Her father worked as a dump truck driver and her mother as a factory meat packer, and the family lived in an industrial city where many residents held manual or factory employment.

In the 1960s she moved to Saugus, Massachusetts, a town on the North Shore of Boston. Her subsequent education at Boston University and her entry into the legal profession took place in the same metropolitan area.

Education

Berry studied at Boston University, a private university in Boston that offers undergraduate and professional degrees. She graduated magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest American academic honor society, which recognizes excellence in the liberal arts and sciences.

She then attended Boston University School of Law, from which she graduated cum laude with a Juris Doctor in 1974. The law school, located in Boston, prepared students for the Massachusetts bar, and Berry was admitted to that bar in 1974.

Career

After law school, Berry served as a law clerk to Edward F. Hennessey, a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, the highest court of Massachusetts, which also supervises the state's judiciary and bar. She was later a partner of S Eggeuno and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1974.

Berry then spent six years as a federal prosecutor with the United States Department of Justice, where she served as chief of the New England Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. The task force was a regional unit of the Justice Department directed against organized crime and drug trafficking.

In 1986 she became a partner at Ropes & Gray, a Boston law firm founded in 1865 by John Codman Ropes and John Chipman Gray, both Harvard Law School graduates. The firm shifted toward corporate law after the late nineteenth century, and Berry practiced there until 1994, when she resigned to run for Massachusetts Attorney General.

From 1997 to 2000 she was a partner at Rubin and Rudman LLC in Boston. Her trial work at both firms covered a wide range of complex litigation.

During the same years she served on the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the Massachusetts body that oversees the provision of publicly funded legal representation for defendants who cannot afford counsel. She also served on the Governor's Judicial Nominating Council, which reviews candidates for judicial appointment, and chaired a United States Magistrate Selection Panel.

Governor Paul Cellucci appointed Berry to the Massachusetts Appeals Court, and she took the oath of office on February 28, 2001. The Appeals Court was created in 1972 as an intermediate appellate court to reduce the caseload of the Supreme Judicial Court, and it reviews trial court decisions in civil and criminal cases. Berry retired from the bench on April 1, 2016, and rejoined Rubin & Rudman LLP.

As an adjunct professor, Berry taught advocacy courses at Boston University School of Law, Northeastern University School of Law, and Suffolk University Law School. She also worked as an instructor at Harvard Law School, founded in 1817 and among the oldest law schools in the United States, and at the United States Department of Justice Advocacy Institute.

Berry has published several articles, co-authored a treatise on criminal law, and served on the editorial board of the Massachusetts Law Review.

Achievements

• Co-authored a treatise on criminal law and published several articles on legal subjects, contributing to scholarship in the field of criminal law and advocacy.

Politics

Berry was a Republican. Her political affiliation connected her with the Republican Party, founded in 1854, which in the late twentieth century encompassed both conservative and moderate currents. Its principles emphasized individual liberty, limited government, fiscal discipline, and the rule of law, while its Massachusetts members often balanced these commitments with a moderate approach to state institutions.

Berry's political career developed in the context of Republican politics in Massachusetts. In 1994 she was the Republican candidate for Massachusetts Attorney General, a statewide office, which led her to leave her partnership at Ropes & Gray. Her later appointment to the Massachusetts Appeals Court came from Governor Paul Cellucci, a Republican, placing her career within the state's Republican executive leadership during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Membership

Berry was a member of the Board of Bar Overseers, the Massachusetts body that oversees the admission and discipline of lawyers in the state. Her service on the Committee for Public Counsel Services connected her with the state's system of publicly funded representation for criminal defendants.

She was also a counselor to the Frank J. Murray Inn of Court, one of the local associations that bring together judges, lawyers, and students to promote professionalism and trial skills. Her participation on the board of advisors of the National Trial Competition linked her with a national competition in trial advocacy for law students.

• Board member

  Committee for Public Counsel Services , United States

  1986 - 1991

• Member

  Board of Bar Overseers , United States

• Counselor

  Frank J. Murray Inn of Court , United States

• Member of the board of advisors

  National Trial Competition , United States

References

• Associate Justice Janis M. Berry Official Massachusetts Appeals Court biography describing Berry's education at Boston University and Boston University School of Law, her clerkship with Edward F. Hennessey, private practice, federal prosecution, appointment in 2001, and teaching and publication activities.
• Janis M. Berry Encyclopedic profile describing Berry's upbringing in Everett and Saugus, Massachusetts, her career at Ropes & Gray and Rubin and Rudman, her 1994 candidacy for Massachusetts Attorney General, and her service on the Massachusetts Appeals Court.
• Janis Berry Reference profile summarizing Berry's education, legal career, service as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court, and retirement in 2016.