David Christopher Dearborn

Biography

Chris Dearborn serves as a clinical professor of law at Suffolk University Law School. He has directed the Suffolk Defenders Clinic since 2006-7. In this Clinic, Professor Dearborn closely supervises eight students every year as they represent indigent defendants primarily in multiple divisions of Boston Municipal Court. Professor Dearborn received tenure in 2011 and was promoted to full professor in 2012.

Professor Dearborn also serves as the Co-Director for the Trial and Appellate Advocacy Concentration at Suffolk Law School, and has taught several other classes, including Intensive Trial Advocacy, Evidence, State Criminal Practice and Procedure, and the first-ever class on Massachusetts State Constitutional Law. He also regularly guest lectures for other classes, including the Immigration Clinic, Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Digital Evidence, and Professional Responsibility. Professor Dearborn also has been a guest lecturer at Boston College Law School, Boston University Law School, Northeastern University Law, and he served as Trial Advisor to the Trial Advocacy Workshop at Harvard Law School.

Professor Dearborn is also Of Counsel to the criminal defense firm of Rankin & Sultan.

Prior to joining Suffolk University, Professor Dearborn was a public defender for 10 years with the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) and a Senior Associate with the law firm Rankin & Sultan. He also taught as an adjunct Professor at New England School of Law and Western New England College of Law and was a teaching fellow at Brandeis University in its Legal Studies Department.

Aside from his academic and professional experience, Professor Dearborn has also served as an instructor and presenter at dozens of conferences, professional trainings, and CLE programs. Over the last 25 years, he has served as a faculty member of MCLE, providing statewide training to attorneys on various issues, including sexual assault cases and discovery practice. He has also been an instructor at Essex County Bar Advocate Program and the Suffolk Lawyers for Justice, Middlesex County Bar Advocates, the Norfolk County Bar Advocates, and CPCS. Professor Dearborn has lectured at training programs for multiple DA’s offices on prosecutorial ethics, cross examination, and direct examination. During COVID, he created a series of webinars that he continues to run several times a year entitled “Office Hours with Professor Dearborn”. He has also presented at the annual AALS Clinical Conference on multiple occasions.

Professor Dearborn serves on multiple Boards and Committees. Specifically, he is a member of the Supreme Judicial Court’s (SJC) Standing Advisory Committee on the Massachusetts Rules of Criminal Procedure, sits on the Board for the Suffolk Lawyers for Justice, and is on the MBA’s Criminal Justice Council.

During the course of his career, he has served as an expert commentator for TV, radio, on-line, and print media, commenting on high profile cases and hot-button criminal justice issues, including, but not limited to, providing extensive commentary on the Aaron Hernandez, Whitey Bulger, Marathon Bomber, Brian Walshe, and Karen Read cases.

Professor Dearborn has authored numerous Opinion Editorials and Letters to the Editor in a variety of periodicals, including USA Today, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, and the Huffington Post. His scholarship includes law review articles on the intersection between the Miranda Doctrine and the Massachusetts Constitution and multiple shorter pieces relating to evidence principles and trial techniques.

Education

• BA, St. Lawrence University
• JD,Vermont Law School

Publications

Articles

• 'You Have the Right to an Attorney', but Not Right Now: Combating Miranda's Failure by Advancing the Point of Attachment Under Article XII of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, 44 SUFFOLK L. REV. 359 (2011)
• What Every Criminal Lawyer Needs to Know about Impeachment Law, 12 :1 MASS. BAR ASS'N. SECTION REVIEW 6 (2010)