COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC COUNSEL SERVICES
The Committee is a 15-member body appointed by the Governor, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President of the Senate, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. It oversees the provision of legal representation to indigent persons in criminal and civil cases and administrative proceedings in which there is a right to counsel.
Mia Alvarado (Secretary) has been the Executive Directory of Roxbury Youthworks, Inc since 2008. She is responsible for a $3.5M annual budget, a 40 member staff and manages all of the agency’s contracts with the Department of Children and Families, the Department of Youth Services and the Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance ensuring that adequate funds are available to permit the agency to carry out its work.
A Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker, Mia has worked extensively in the field of child welfare and juvenile justice. Prior to her current position, Mia was a Special Assistant to the DCF Commissioner’s Office and Chief of Staff to former DSS Commissioner Harry Spence.
Mia has a Master of Social Work from Salem State College and a Bachelor of Science in Education from Wheelock College
David Apfel is a partner in Goodwin’s Complex Business Litigation and Dispute Resolution Department. Mr. Apfel is a former federal prosecutor who specializes in white collar criminal defense, SEC and other government investigations, internal corporate investigations, and bet-the-company civil business litigation. He is also the founder and chair of the firm’s Gaming & Gambling practice, and the founder and co-chair of the firm’s Cannabis practice. He has been regularly recognized by Chambers USA as a leading white collar criminal defense attorney, and he is perennially recognized in The Best Lawyers in America and as a “Super Lawyer” by Boston Magazine. He is a trial lawyer who represents corporations and individuals in an array of criminal and civil cases, ranging from Medicaid fraud to first degree murder, and insider trading to multi-billion-dollar mortgage-backed securities litigation. He is also a trusted adviser to gaming and gambling companies, and to investors, banks, and others involved or considering involvement in state-legalized cannabis markets. Mr. Apfel also has an active pro bono practice in which he represents indigents in federal criminal cases and state murder prosecutions.
The Hon. Carol S. Ball (Retired) was an associate justice of the Suffolk County Superior Court in Massachusetts. She was appointed to the bench by former Governor Bill Weld in 1996. She retired in 2015. She received a bachelor’s degree from Smith College in 1973. She went on to complete a J.D. at Northeastern University School of Law in 1976. After law school, she began her legal career as a law clerk to the justices of the Massachusetts Superior Court. Then, in 1977, she joined the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, where she worked as an assistant district attorney for several years. In 1985, she left the public arena to enter private practice, where she tried civil cases as well as represented criminal defendants until joining the judiciary in 1995. She also taught trial advocacy as an instructor at Northeastern University School of Law, Boston University School of Law, and Harvard Law School. She is a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Her other memberships included the Women’s Bar Association, the Massachusetts Bar Association, and the Boston Bar Association.
Miriam Conrad recently retired from her position as the Federal Public Defender for the Districts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. She joined the office in 1992 as an Assistant Federal Public Defender, representing indigent clients at trial and on appeal. She served as head of the office from 2005 until her retirement in March 2022. She now is a member of the CJA panel for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, accepting appointments to represent indigent defendants in federal district court. She began her career in criminal defense as a trial lawyer at the Committee for Public Counsel Services, after clerking for Hon. Rya W. Zobel in the federal district court for Massachusetts. She is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. She graduated from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School.
Lael Elizabeth Hiam Chester, JD, is the Director of the Emerging Adult Justice Project at the Columbia University Justice Lab. A graduate of Barnard College and Harvard Law School, she worked as the Albert Martin Sacks Clinical Fellow at the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard and then was an Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. For 12 years, she served as Executive Director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice (CfJJ), a statewide non-profit dedicated to improving the juvenile justice system. She then served as a Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, where she focused her research on emerging adults (ages 18 – 25) and has continued this work at Columbia University’s Justice Lab since 2017. In addition to conducting cutting-edge research and supporting states with systemic reform, she organizes the Emerging Adult Justice Learning Community, a first-of-its-kind, carefully orchestrated collaborative learning environment that brings together researchers, practitioners, policy makers and advocates from around the country to increase learning and policy innovation in this new field.
Jack Cinquegrana is a nationally recognized trial lawyer and bar leader, with over 30 years of experience in public service, government enforcement defense, and litigation. As head of Choate’s Government Enforcement practice for two decades, Jack has represented scores of companies and their officers in DOJ investigations and prosecutions, SEC and private securities fraud litigation, False Claims Act litigation, and high stakes internal investigations. Jack is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and has served as Special Counsel to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, President of the Boston Bar Association, and a member of the Massachusetts Sentencing Commission. He is a former Assistant United States Attorney and Chief Trial Counsel in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. In 2017 he was selected as a Fellow in Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. Jack teaches Federal White Collar practice at New England Law/Boston; serves as a member and former Chair of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the governing board of Massachusetts’ public defender agency; and is a Director of the Pine Street Inn, New England’s largest organization serving homeless men and women.
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Colby Dillon is Senior Policy Advisor and Counsel to Senate President Karen E. Spilka. She is the chief advisor to the Senate President on the policy areas of criminal legal system reform, civil rights, health care, mental and behavioral health, public health, and human services. Prior to joining the Senate President’s policy team in 2019, Colby was a supervising attorney in the criminal defense practice at The Bronx Defenders, where she supervised teams of criminal defense attorneys of various experience levels. As a public defender, Colby zealously represented thousands of clients charged with misdemeanors and felonies from arraignment through trial or disposition and tried dozens of cases to verdict. She also served as a co-organizer and faculty member of Defenders’ Academy, a week-long trial skills program for public and private defense attorneys of all skill levels across the country. Colby is a member of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association, the Massachusetts Black Women Attorneys, and the Women’s Bar Association. Colby holds a J.D. from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and received her B.A. in Political Science and Child Development from Tufts University.
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Antoinette “Toni” Hall has been an attorney for nearly 30 years and through her law firm, A.L. Hall & Associates, has advocated for marginalized and underserved populations in culturally diverse, low-income communities. She has provided private bar panel advocacy services in criminal, civil, and administrative proceedings in the Superior, District, Probate, and Housing courts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, along with Federal Bankruptcy, Appellate, and Immigration Courts.
During the 2020 pandemic housing crisis, Attorney Hall helped establish Chelsea Legal Services, a nonprofit community legal center that helps maintain housing for renters in Chelsea. She also served on the Board of Directors for the Lena Park Community Development Corporation, a group that has impacted thousands of children, youth, and families as a critical service provider of quality affordable housing and effective human services.
Attorney Hall was recognized with the Liacos Award in 2015.
Martin W. Healy is the Chief Legal Counsel and Chief Operating Officer of the Massachusetts Bar Association. He was appointed as a National Uniform Law Commissioner for Massachusetts by Gov. Deval L. Patrick. Mr. Healy was honored with Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s 2014 Lawyer of the Year award for his work in making attorney-conducted voir dire a reality in Massachusetts. He actively serves as a volunteer juvenile law attorney with the CPCS Youth Advocacy Project. He previously served as a hearing committee member with the Board of Bar Overseers and as an adjunct professor at Suffolk University in its Masters in Criminal Justice program. The Massachusetts Juvenile Bar Association (MJBA) presented Mr. Healy with its 2015 Chief Justice Francis G. Poitrast Award for his advocacy on behalf of the juvenile justice system, including his efforts to increase compensation for attorneys who handle juvenile cases through CPCS. He formerly served as a commonwealth of Massachusetts bar examiner for the Supreme Judicial Court. In 2019, he received the Beacon of Justice Award from the state’s Equal Justice Coalition. He has been appointed to the Firearm Licensing Review Board by Gov. Charlie D. Baker. In 2020, Mr. Healy was sworn in by Baker as a commissioner to the governor’s special Supreme Judicial Court Nominating Commission. Prior to joining the MBA staff, he worked in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office Appellate Division and as a legislative aide in the Massachusetts Senate.
James C. Kennedy, Esquire is the Chief Legal Counsel for the Speaker of the House. He received his JD from Suffolk Law School in 2003 and in 1998 he received his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science & Government from Northeastern University.
Joe Kociubes (Chair) has been a member of the Committee for Public Counsel Services since 2004 and currently is its Chair. Joe previously has served as President of the Boston Bar Association, outside General Counsel to the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation and to the ACLU of Massachusetts and was a long-time board member of Greater Boston Legal Services. He represented Suffolk Lawyers for Justice in connection with an antitrust investigation the US Department of Justice opened into SLJ.
Joe was a long-time partner of Bingham McCutchen’s (and its predecessor’s) trial department. He has been a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers for more than three decades and has been included on various publications’ best lawyer lists. Probably his most prominent trial was the successful defense of the Boston Globe in a lawsuit commenced by a former governor of the Commonwealth.
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Jennifer McKinnon: former CPCS staff attorney and Framingham and Quincy PDD AIC. She left CPCS to become a Clinical Instructor at Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Institute. She has years of experience representing clients charged with crimes, including major felonies in Boston and surrounding communities. She is currently a partner at her firm Wiesner McKinnon LLP, after initially being Of Counsel to the firm Shapiro, Weissberg & Garin (formerly known as Stern, Shapiro, Weissberg & Garin, LLP). Jennifer and her firm litigate a wide variety of criminal and civil cases, including a focus on police misconduct and prisoner rights litigation. Jennifer continues to take appointed criminal cases as a member of SLJ and is also on the CJA panel in federal court.
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Georgia Petropoulos – Georgia graduated from Suffolk University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1996. She earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Massachusetts Law School in 1999.
Prior to attending law school, Georgia worked as a legal assistant at the Law Offices of Creedon and Creedon located in Brockton, MA. While attending Suffolk University, Georgia worked as a legislative assistant for the Office of Senator Michael C. Creedon at the Massachusetts State House. There she assisted with drafting legislation and assisted constituents with their requests. While in law school, Georgia was a judicial intern for the Honorable John M. Xifaras in the Fall River Superior Court, Civil Session. Georgia also worked in the Plymouth County District Attorney’s office as a Supreme Judicial Court Rule 3:03 intern before being hired as an Assistant District Attorney. As a prosecutor, Georgia practiced in both the Superior and District courts in Plymouth County. In 2004, Georgia opened her own law firm, Law Offices of Georgia Petropoulos located in Brockton, MA with a concentration in criminal defense. Georgia has represented clients in the Superior, District, Juvenile and Probate and Family Courts throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She is licensed to practice in both Massachusetts and the United States District Court, District of Massachusetts.
In 2018, Georgia was appointed by Governor Charlie Baker to serve on the Committee for Public Counsel Services. Georgia also serves on the Board of Directors for the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Brockton, MA. She is a member of the Plymouth County Bar Association, Plymouth District Bar Association, the Hellenic Bar Association and the Ladies Philoptochos Society, Brockton Chapter. Georgia is a citizen of Greece, by dissent, as a first generation American. She is fluent in the Greek language.
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Eric Tennen is a Magistrate at the Division of Administrative Law Appeals. Before that, he was in private practice for over 18 years at Swomley & Tennen, LLP, doing work as a Bar Advocate on the Murder, Superior Court, District Court, Appeals, and SDP/SORB panels. He has provided representation at the trial and appellate level and done civil rights litigation and administrative law.
He presently volunteers as a group facilitator at Communities for Restorative Justice and volunteers as a hearing committee member for the Board of Bar Overseers. He previously served as the Chairperson and Treasurer of the nonprofit organization Criminal Justice Policy Coalition. He also taught a seminar at Boston University School of Law on Sex Crimes and Collateral Consequences from 2013-2022.
Attorney Tennan received the Liacos Award in 2011. He was also recognized by the National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws with the Hawthorne Award in 2022.
Honorable W. Paul White is a Principal in the Boston government relations firm The Karol Group, Inc. White joined the firm in September 2001 following four years as the Associate Vice President for State and Community Affairs at his alma mater, Boston College and served as a member of the President’s Cabinet.
Prior to his time at Boston College, White served as a Massachusetts State Senator from the Suffolk and Norfolk district for nine years. He has been recognized for his leadership in the Senate by the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Lawyers, The Massachusetts Children’s Trust Fund, Action for Boston Community Development, and others.
Paul White also served for 16 years in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from a district in Boston’s Dorchester section. During his House tenure, White was appointed the first Chair of the Criminal Justice Committee. He was recognized by the Massachusetts Bar Association as Legislator of the Year and received awards from Suffolk University Law School and the Massachusetts Amvets. White pioneered legislation for community health, community development and public transportation.
Paul White has an A.B. in Political Science from Boston College, an M.A. in Political Science from the State University of New York at Albany, a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School, and an M.P.A from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. For more than 20 years he was a partner in the Boston firm White, Salimbene and Madek.
Paul White has served over the years on numerous community boards and organizations. He served as a board member for many years for the St. Mary’s Center for Women and Children, a human services agency affiliated with the Archdiocese of Boston located at the site of the former St. Margaret’s Hospital in Dorchester. He also serves on the board of Family Aid Boston a nonprofit family homeless services agency.