After graduating CM, Bill Leahy ’64 went on to study and run track at University of Notre Dame. In 1974, he graduated from Harvard Law School and began his career in public interest law. Leahy served as a public defender in Boston, Cambridge and Dedham. When the Committee for Counsel of Public Services opened in 1984, he became its first Deputy Chief Counsel and in 1991 he took over as Chief Counsel.
Leahy’s advocacy for the underrepresented in courts has been instrumental in cases like Commonwealth v. Sneed (1979) and Lavallee v. Justices of Hampden County Superior Court (2004).
Leahy credits CM with giving him his passion for public service. “It was really the high expectations there, the high standards, and the passion that CM was full of—it’s a sense that we were all on a mission.”
Photo courtesy of the Office of Public Counsel Services. |