Associate Justice Elspeth B. Cypher
Elspeth B. Cypher was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on February 26, 1959. She received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Emerson College in 1980 and a J.D., cum laude, from Suffolk University Law School in 1986, where she served on the Suffolk University Law Review. From 1986 to 1988 she was an associate at the Boston law firm of Grayer, Brown and Dilday. In 1988 she became an assistant district attorney in Bristol County, where she served for the next twelve years; from 1993 to 2000 she was chief of the appellate division of that office, and argued many cases in the Supreme Judicial Court and the Appeals Court. In 2000 Governor Paul Cellucci appointed her to the Appeals Court; she took her seat as an associate justice on December 27, 2000. Since 1994 Justice Cypher has been an adjunct professor at Southern New England School of Law, where she has taught courses on legal writing, criminal procedure, criminal law, and women, law and the legal system. She has participated in numerous educational programs for judges and lawyers, and has written extensively about developments in criminal law in Massachusetts. Active in the Massachusetts Bar Association, she has chaired its Criminal Law section and now serves as co-chair of its Committee on Plain English Civil Jury Instructions. She was the recipient of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly's Lawyer of the Year Award in 2000.