Jennifer A. Sunderland

Jennifer is Of Counsel in the firm's Boston office. She focuses on helping employers defend claims involving discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination. She also has experience with matters involving contract disputes, insurance coverage, professional malpractice, product liability, and premises liability. Jennifer has tried numerous felony criminal and civil jury trials in Massachusetts state court. She successfully argued a case before the Supreme Judicial Court involving the retroactive application of a new criminal statute to pending cases.

A Massachusetts native, Jennifer attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a full academic scholarship. At New England School of Law, she was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. She received the Trustee Bradbury Gilbert Award for Excellence in Achievement upon graduation.

Jennifer served as a law clerk to the Honorable Robert J. Cordy of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. She has worked as a trial attorney for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the agency responsible for public defense in Massachusetts. As an adjunct professor at New England School of Law, she has taught both legal writing and an upper level course focused on criminal trial practice.

Jennifer is a board member of the Massachusetts Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. She is also co-chair of the Business Development Committee of the Women’s Bar Association and a member of the Boston Bar Association, Massachusetts Bar Association, and the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. She remains actively involved with the Supreme Judicial Court’s Law Clerks’ Society and was co-chair of its governing board from 2014-2016. She was also selected as a participant in the Women’s Bar Association’s Leadership Initiative in 2013.

Jennifer has an active pro bono practice and also mentors high school, college, and law students through the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Tiered Community Mentoring Program.

Bar Admissions

• Massachusetts

Education

• New England School of Law, J.D. (2008)
• University of Massachusetts Amherst, B.A. (2004)

Awards and Honors

• New England School of Law Trustee Bradbury Gilbert Award for Excellence in Achievement
• Massachusetts Super Lawyers "Rising Star" (2018-2022)

Affiliations

• Boston Bar Association
• Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys
• Massachusetts Bar Association
• Supreme Judicial Court's Law Clerks’ Society
• Women's Bar Association

Community Involvement

• Massachusetts Appleseed Center for Law & Justice (Board Member)