Laura comes to LCLC with over 20 years of juvenile delinquency trial and appellate practice in Massachusetts. In the early 2000s, Laura began to develop a holistic model of juvenile defense when she observed that the court process often ignored the young person’s social needs. Simultaneously, Laura also began raising developmental arguments at the appellate level leading to several ground-breaking decisions, including Commonwealth v. Samuel S., 69 N.E.3D 573 (2017), changing the application of the sex offender registry law in Massachusetts for juveniles committed to the Department of Youth Services. To view oral argument in this case please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFE7_kSDh48.
Over the years, Laura became a state-wide mentor teaching other lawyers her method of integrating the whole family into her representation of an individual client. For these efforts, in 2017, Laura was awarded the Jay Blitzman Youth Advocacy award recognizing her impact on juvenile defense and her legacy mentorship throughout Massachusetts.
Laura is a 1997 graduate (magna cum laude) of Western New England University School of Law and a graduate of Smith College. Before law school, Laura was the Program Director for two residential programs in Western Massachusetts for adults with major mental illnesses.
