Last week, the Youth Advocacy Foundation, held a 15th Anniversary Celebration at which CPCS Committee member Joe Kociubes was honored. Joe has been a CPCS Committee member for the past ten years and has been active in a number of organizations focused on civil liberties and legal services for the poor. In fact, Joe has been one of the most important leaders in the Boston legal community for the past three decades.
Before retiring this past fall, Joe was a highly sought after trial lawyer with Bingham McCutchen LLP (now Morgan, Lewis & Bockius). He is a long-time Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. For several decades, publications including Best Lawyers of America, Super Lawyers of New England, Chambers USA, and other rating publications have listed Joe as a leading lawyer. For people looking to hire the best, Joe was always at the top of the list.
There are people that seek out leadership positions in bar associations and the like, because they crave the attention. And then there are the much rarer individuals like Joe, who recognize that sometimes if important things are going to get done, someone will have to step up and lead the way. That is why, in addition to his legal practice, Joe played many other roles in the legal community. Over the years, in addition to his service to CPCS, he has served as President of the Boston Bar Association; spent decades as a member of the Board of Directors of Greater Boston Legal Services, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the Volunteer Lawyers Project, and the North Bennet St. School in Boston; he served as pro bono General Counsel to the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation and to the ACLU of Massachusetts; and for the last ten years he has served as a member of the Committee for Public Counsel Services.
When Joe agrees to take on one of these roles, he doesn’t just attend meetings and go through the motions. He leads committees, he volunteers to take on new initiatives, he leads litigation efforts, and he is always available to give advice. The staff of YAD was lucky to meet Joe when, as a prelude to becoming the BBA President, he decided to get to know more about all of the courts. He came to meet with YAD staff to learn about juvenile defense and, ever since, has been there with legal, financial, and managerial advice and with connections to resources. Over the years Joe has helped YAD in more ways than can be recounted here. For example, he was instrumental in finding funding for an education attorney for the past four years, he has made meeting room space available for numerous CPCS meetings and trainings, he has provided advice about appellate advocacy, and he helped to get an education advocacy pro bono panel off the ground. Joe is somebody who gives lawyers a good name and inspires many lawyers to devote their time and energy to pro bono activities. The Massachusetts legal community and CPCS are far better off because of Joe’s support, guidance, and thoughtfulness.