Alumni Judges in Massachusetts

More active judges in Massachusetts graduated from Suffolk Law School than from any other law school—27 percent of the judges.

Massachusetts has a total of 440 current judges (41 federal and 399 state). Of those, 118 graduated from Suffolk Law—more than one out of four sitting judges in the state.

The data comes from a winter 2021 review of Judicial Biographies conducted by the school.

New England Law had the next most judges, with 53 total, followed by Boston College Law School with 46.

Deep Bench

  • Three of the seven justices on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court are Suffolk Law alumni.
  • Two of the five members of the Rhode Island Supreme Court are Suffolk Law graduates.
  • Suffolk Law graduates are chief justices of the highest courts in Rhode Island and Vermont, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and the US District Courts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island 
  • Suffolk alumni sit on the bench of the Massachusetts Land Court and U.S. Immigration Court in Boston.
  • Now retired, the Hon. Linda S. Dalianis JD ’74 was the first woman on the New Hampshire Supreme Court and was the first female chief justice.