08.29.23 — Northeastern University School of Law is proud to announce that Professor Margaret Burnham, Mary Bonauto ’87 and Joyce Kauffman ’92 will be inducted into Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s inaugural Hall of Fame. Members of the inaugural class were selected based on their career accomplishments, contributions to the development of the law in Massachusetts, contributions to the bar and efforts to improve the quality of justice in Massachusetts.
An internationally recognized expert on civil and human rights, comparative constitutional rights, and international criminal law, Professor Margaret Burnham serves as director of reparations and restorative justice initiatives at Northeastern Law. She is also the faculty co-director of the law school’s Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR) and founded and directs the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), which investigates racial violence in the Jim Crow era and other historical failures of the criminal justice system. She is the author of the award-winning book, By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners.
Mary Bonauto has been called the Thurgood Marshall of the gay rights movement. As senior director of civil rights and legal strategies at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) in Boston, her tireless advocacy and powerful oral arguments before the US Supreme Court, led — in large measure — to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States of America in June of 2015 when she served as one of the lead attorneys in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Joyce Kauffman has practiced family law for the past 25 years in the areas of divorce, guardianship, adoption, mediation and reproductive technology. Throughout, she has maintained a special focus on issues impacting the LGBTQ community in the areas of LGBT adoption, relationship recognition and parentage. Shortly after graduating from law school in 1992, she was on brief in Adoption of Tammy, the case that secured the right for same-sex couples to adopt in Massachusetts.
Membership in the Hall of Fame is reserved for Massachusetts lawyers age 60 and older or who have been practicing for 30 years or more. Burnham, Bonauto and Kauffman will be celebrated alongside their fellow honorees at an awards program on September 12 at Venezia Boston.
About Northeastern University School of Law
The nation’s leader in experiential legal education since 1968, Northeastern University School of Law offers the longest-running, most extensive experience-based legal education program in the country. Northeastern guarantees its students unparalleled practical legal work experiences through its signature Cooperative Legal Education Program. More than 1,000 employers worldwide in a wide range of legal, government, nonprofit and business organizations participate in the program. With a focus on social justice and innovation, Northeastern University School of Law blends theory and practice, providing students with a unique set of skills and experiences to successfully practice law.
For more information, contact d.feldman@northeastern.edu