Dermot Meagher

Dermot Meagher was a judge of the Boston Municipal Court, the oldest trial court in Massachusetts for seventeen years. Before that he was an assistant district attorney, a bail reformer, a court reformer and he taught Criminal Law and Procedure to police officers. He also had a private law practice at various times. He was First Assistant Bar Counsel at the Massachusett Board of Bar Overseers immediately before becoming a judge and was a volunteer member of the City of Boston Human Rights...See more

Dermot Meagher was a judge of the Boston Municipal Court, the oldest trial court in Massachusetts for seventeen years. Before that he was an assistant district attorney, a bail reformer, a court reformer and he taught Criminal Law and Procedure to police officers. He also had a private law practice at various times. He was First Assistant Bar Counsel at the Massachusett Board of Bar Overseers immediately before becoming a judge and was a volunteer member of the City of Boston Human Rights Commission. When he was appointed in 1989 he was the first openly gay judge in Massachusetts. He has been active in a number of gay political and social organizations, including the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), of which he was a member of the board of directors, the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association (MLGBA), of which he was one of the founders, and was a member the AIDS Action Committee Legal Services Committee. He was also one of the founders of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (LCL) of Massachusetts. He is the author of Lyons and Tigers and Bears/ a Judge Joe Lyons Mystery, Judge Sentences/Tales from the Bench and co-author, with Robert Coles, M.D. and Joseph Brenner, M.D. of Drugs and Youth. Dermot Meagher graduated from Harvard College, Boston College Law School, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and was a Fellow at the Harvard Law School Center for Criminal Justice funded by the Ford foundation. He is also an artist and shows his drawings, paintings and prints at the Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown and other venues in New England and Florida. See less