Gordon L. Doerfer

Associate Justice memorial

103 Mass. App. Ct. 1129 (2024)

A special sitting of the Appeals Court was held at Boston on February 21, 2024, at which a Memorial to the late Justice Gordon L. Doerfer was presented.

Present: Chief Justice Green.

Chief Justice Green addressed the court as follows:

Good afternoon, and welcome to this special memorial sitting in honor of our former colleague, Justice Gordon L. Doerfer.  On behalf of the Justices of the Appeals Court, current and retired, I welcome the members of the Doerfer family, especially Justice Doerfer's wife, Priscilla Mullin; his daughters, Joanna and Lora Doerfer; and his sons, Andrew and Byron Doerfer.  I also want to welcome our former colleague, Chief Justice Scott Kafker, now Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, and we have a number of our Appeals Court colleagues, current and former, who are present, too many to single out by name.  I also want to recognize three of Justice Doerfer's former law clerks, Kristy Nardone, Brooks Glahn, and Stephanie Mandell, and last but certainly not least, his longtime legal secretary, Cathijean O'Connor, who continues to provide us with her good service and good humor at the court. 

Before I invite the Attorney General to present her motion, I want just very briefly to offer my own personal reflections on Justice Doerfer.  Now, when I joined this court in 2001 as part of that expansion of the court, Justice Doerfer was among the other expansion judges who joined the court a few months before I did.  But he already had earned the high regard of our colleagues based on his long service on the Superior Court.  And in fact, even by then, he had taken on significant leadership responsibilities for the development and implementation of the court's first document management system, Livelink, which continues to serve the court more than twenty years later.  He became a dear friend, and we continued to work together even following his retirement, when he asked me to join the Massachusetts Bar Association's administration of justice section, which he chaired.  It is indeed a distinct honor for me personally to be able to preside over this memorial sitting.

Andrea Joy Campbell, Attorney General, addressed the court as follows:

May it please the court:  on behalf of the Attorney General's office and the bar of the Commonwealth, it is my honor and privilege to present a memorial and tribute to the late Gordon L. Doerfer, who served as an Associate Justice of this court.

Gordon L. Doerfer was born on September 11, 1939, in West Allis, Wisconsin, and was the second child of John Doerfer and Ida Page.  He grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, and graduated from Chevy Chase High School.  He met his first wife, Jane O'Day, on a blind date in college, and together they raised their eldest children, Andrew and Joanna.  Justice Doerfer met his second wife, Priscilla Mullin, when they were seated next to each other on an airplane.  They moved to Needham and raised their younger children, Byron and Lora.  In addition to his four children and wife, Justice Doerfer is survived by his grandchildren, Ava Tartikoff and Robinson Doerfer; and his brother, John Doerfer.  Justice Doerfer was devoted to his blended family and took great pride in watching his children grow and prosper.

Justice Doerfer enrolled at Amherst College and graduated cum laude, in 1961.  He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1966.  Justice Doerfer began his legal career as a law clerk to Justice Jacob Spiegel of the Supreme Judicial Court.

He then joined the law firm of Nutter McClennen & Fish, later becoming junior partner, until his appointment to the Municipal Court for the city of Boston in 1973.  He was appointed to the Superior Court in 1977.  Justice Doerfer then returned to private practice in 1981, joining and later becoming a partner at the law firm of Palmer & Dodge.

He was again appointed to the Superior Court in 1990, where he served as chair of the Superior Court's alternative dispute resolution committee.  He served on the Superior Court for a total of fifteen years.

In 2001, Justice Doerfer was appointed to the Appeals Court by Governor Paul Cellucci and served until his retirement in 2007.  He produced a total of 387 written decisions, of which seventy-nine were signed opinions and six were rescript opinions.  Chief Justice Green remembers Justice Doerfer as a consistent voice of wisdom, experience, and moderation, and a very nice person and supportive colleague.

Following his retirement, Justice Doerfer worked as a mediator and arbitrator for Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services.  Justice Doerfer passed away on June 21, 2021.

It is an honor for me to be here today to pay tribute to Justice Doerfer, a truly outstanding judge whose commitment to public service is an example to the entire legal profession.  On behalf of the bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I respectfully move that this Memorial be spread upon the records of the Appeals Court.

Stephanie J. Mandell, Esquire, addressed the court as follows:

I was honored to clerk for Judge Doerfer before his retirement in 2007.  I first met Judge Doerfer in the fall of 2003, during the Appeals Court clerkship interview process.  I had not thought the interview went very well because, I admit, I had a hard time reading Judge Doerfer.  He was cordial, yet formal, although he did crack a few jokes, which we both chuckled at.  He seemed like a kind person, definitely intelligent, measured, and thoughtful, yet the interview felt demanding to some extent.  If it had not been for his chuckling, I would have been fairly intimidated.

Nevertheless, he offered me the clerkship, and within two weeks of working with Judge Doerfer, I knew I had hit the post-law school jackpot.  I enjoyed the work, the court, and, most especially, my new boss.  He was indeed kind, intelligent, and patient, and he did like to make jokes and chuckle.

With the next year's clerkship interviews fast approaching, I knew I wanted to stay.  I screwed up my courage, went into his lobby, and sat down opposite him at his desk.  I haltingly (and ramblingly) spit out:  "Judge Doerfer, I know we haven't worked together long, but I really like it here, really enjoy the work, and really enjoy learning from you (I wasn't above kissing up), and I know that some judges have clerks for two years.  I want you to know that I would be interested in working for you again, if you're open to having a clerk for a second year, and then (I added hopefully) you wouldn't have to bother about the upcoming clerkship interviews."

And then, I waited for his reaction.  He paused.  I was nervous.  He was thinking.  He cleared his throat and said, "Well, um, yes.  The thing is, you know -- you haven't even handed in any work yet."  I said, "That's true, but I will soon."  And he jumped back in, cleared his throat again and said, "I mean it's very early in our working together.  It's like, if this was a relationship, you know we haven't even been to dinner yet and you're talking about marriage," and he chuckled at his joke.  And I laughed as well.

But then he immediately turned somber as he was so embarrassed and concerned that I would misconstrue his analogy as inappropriate.  He profusely apologized and said, "You know I didn't mean that the way it sounded."  I assured him I understood, and then I asked him again to stay for a second year.

In any case, I like that story because it told me about a different side of Judge Doerfer -- a less guarded side than he often appeared to have.  He was very appropriate in his interactions.  He was thoughtful, kind, gentle, calm, and although at times chatty, he could be quite private.  Yet he loved opening up and talking about his wonderful wife, Priscilla, and his so-loved children.  All of them.

One of the main things that I and some of his past clerks recall is Judge Doerfer's sense of humor and how this humor often brought unexpected levity to a conversation or situation.  As his first law clerk, Brooks Glahn, told me, "He always seemed to have a quip or joke to keep the serious nature of the law light and fun."  By way of example, Brooks shared a memory of one particular oral argument about a crime that occurred, possibly in Scituate.  It was an assault with a dangerous weapon.  Brooks remembered that "when a lawyer made the argument that it could not be assumed his client had a 'shod foot' because the alleged assault took place in a seaside community, without missing a beat, Judge Doerfer then asked, 'Is Boston a seaside community?'  Everyone, including the lawyer, laughed because he was able to bring levity while making an important legal point of reasoning."

Another of his clerks, Kristy Nardone, recalled his sense of humor in the everyday conversations, and how they would laugh together about the prior night's episode of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

In addition to his humor, Judge Doerfer was also a wonderful teacher.  As my supervisor, Judge Doerfer was a gentle instructor, but he could be firm as well.  He could make up his mind fast, but remained open to the direction of his colleagues, arguments from attorneys, and thoughts from a clerk who probably should not have had such strong opinions.  We would always talk about cases before oral arguments (as well as, of course, after).  This was mostly for my benefit (I realized later), so I could learn the process that he took to dissect the case and come to a determination.  His reasoning flowed like a river from one point to the next.  It felt flawless and effortless.  As Brooks recalled, "While Judge Doerfer worked very hard, he never seemed rushed, or stressed, or pressured in any way."  And I agree.  He was a calm and steady presence.

I remember two cases that Judge Doerfer and I disagreed on.  On one of them, he told me to research and bring him a draft.  During the course of my drafting, I realized what he already knew so clearly -- that he was right on the law and the outcome.  I sheepishly brought him the draft that I had worked on (or rather wasted so much time on) and told him I changed my mind on how vigorously I had argued the other side.  He did not make me feel low, small, or embarrassed (not that any judge would have), but he leaned back in his chair and simply said, "Good.  I'm glad we can move forward on the same page."  Then he made a joke, and we both chuckled at it.  I appreciated his gracious approach to teaching and to being a judge.  Kristy Nardone also had a good example of his gracious approach.  She shared a faint recollection of her drafting a footnote in an opinion that took the attorney to task for throwing everything but the kitchen sink into their weakly argued brief, and Judge Doerfer, in returning the draft to her, removed the footnote, with a gently worded note to Kristy about not including unnecessary footnotes whether accurate or not.  His point was understood.

Judge Doerfer was a wonderful person to work for.  He was a generous teacher, quick with a compliment, or straight to the point with how to improve.  He was ready to help me on my legal journey.  He allowed me to have legal opportunities.  For example, he supported me assisting another judge on planning a conference related to women and the law, which was important to me and also important to him.  He allowed me to work on recycling efforts at the court because it was important to me and also important to him.  He had me tag along to various legal meetings, including Boston Inn of Court meetings.  He was so well respected.  It was a pleasure to be with him wherever he went.

He would continue to tell me, even after he retired, about his wonderful wife and children.  And he enjoyed his work as a mediator at JAMS -- a position, I have no doubt, suited to his temperament, intellect, gentle nature, and resolve to get it done and get it right.  

I want to mention how keenly interested Judge Doerfer was in technology.  He was impressively tech-savvy, and as Brooks told me, Judge Doerfer had been tasked with leading the effort to create a document management system for the court and to bring some of the decision drafting and editing process online.

Here at the Appeals Court, I saw that Judge Doerfer was respected by his colleagues, reserved to some extent, but a positive, guiding presence nonetheless.  He had a genuine respect for the court; the court staff, including his wonderful secretary, Jeanie (who laughed along with him); his colleagues; and especially the important work that he and this court accomplished.  He believed in the rule of law and also understood the human element each case brought.

And on that note, I will end my comments by apologizing to the court because Judge Doerfer's early retirement was my fault.  He had not yet reached the mandatory retirement age when he left.  Indeed, I truly believe that he was too kind to tell me that he did not want me to stay on again.  Not only had Judge Doerfer hired me for a second year, but he also asked me to stay for a third year.  Later that year, he privately announced to me that he would be retiring.  When I mentioned my theory that he did not know how to get rid of me without retiring, he simply said, "Possibly."  Then he chuckled.  And, with the same concern as if I would misconstrue his joke, he said, "No, no.  Of course not."  He simply said, "It's time."

I thank the court for allowing me this time to share these thoughts and memories.

Chief Justice Green read aloud the remarks of retired Appeals Court Justice James F. McHugh, III, who responded for the court as follows:

It is indeed an honor to present the court's response to the Attorney General's thoughtful motion and to speak for a few moments about our friend and former colleague Gordon Doerfer.  Though often quiet and understated, Gordon was on several levels a truly remarkable person.

To begin with, Gordon majored in physics while he attended Amherst College.  That was surely not a conventional major for one who went on to become such a prominent member of the bar.  But the qualities he displayed as a lawyer and a judge were evident even then and were recognized by a classmate who wrote a section of the obituary published in the Amherst College magazine shortly after his death.  Gordon Doerfer, the author wrote, "was a scientist and a lawyer, always faithful to science and the law.  He never coined a fancy phrase, never worried about appearances and never insisted on winning an argument.  Yet he was the most successful debater, the most convincing advocate and the most cogent reasoner."

Convincing advocacy and cogent reasoning stayed with Gordon for the rest of his life.  Successful in practice with a major Boston law firm, he served as a Justice of the Boston Municipal Court for four years, as a Justice of the Superior Court for fifteen years punctuated by a nine year return to private practice, and as a Justice of this court for another six years.

While practicing law and serving on the bench, Gordon was for thirty-two years an instructor at Suffolk University Law School.  He also served for many years as the president of the American Judicature Society.  Founded in 1913 to promote the fair and efficient administration of justice throughout the nation, the society had some 50,000 members during Gordon's tenure as president.  And, while doing all of that, he found time to author numerous articles for Massachusetts and national legal publications.

Gordon's opinions were clear, thoughtful, and incisive, and as one might expect, they often reflected the wisdom he had obtained while serving on the Boston Municipal and Superior Courts.  In one appeal, for example, a defendant, evidently possessed of a powerful thirst, appealed a probation condition prohibiting his consumption of alcohol.  The trial judge had imposed that condition after the defendant's conviction for offenses involving assaultive behavior.  It was undisputed that no alcohol had been involved in the assaults, and the defendant claimed that the condition was therefore improper.  Rejecting that contention, Gordon wrote that "[t]he connection between anger, violence, and alcohol consumption in a person who has demonstrated a violent disposition that is hard for him to control is not speculative or unreasonable.  It is a circumstance that most any trial judge in a busy District Court will undoubtedly encounter with some frequency."

Gordon's contributions to the court, though, ranged far beyond his written opinions.  Collegiality was one of those contributions.  As one of the justices who served with him put it, Gordon "was always available and never seemed to mind when I wandered into his office, unannounced, to ask a question or just chat for a bit.  He was so even tempered and thoughtful as a jurist, how fortunate for those appearing before the Appeals Court."

Major traces of another contribution Gordon made are still with us, for in 2002 and 2003 he was a leader in the court's movement toward automation.  As that work began, indeed since the court's inception in 1972, the justice responsible for the initial draft of an opinion typed it or had it typed by one of the court's tireless secretaries.  The draft was then circulated to the other justices on the panel that heard the case.  After reviewing the draft, each of the other members of the panel had their comments typed and circulated to the other two justices who had heard the appeal with them.

Sometimes those comments were short, but sometimes they were extensive and produced extensive typed responses.  Sometimes that process could go on for quite some time before a finished opinion emerged.  And, as one might imagine, that process could produce both secretarial fatigue and confusion over which version of the opinion was the most recent.  Consequently, version confusion sometimes led to revisions that undid parts of earlier revisions on which all panel members had agreed.

To address those problems, Justice Doerfer became an early champion of a court-wide electronic system that included an automatic version control.  That system allowed participating justices and their secretaries to make suggested changes to existing drafts and post them in a central repository that was accessible by other panel members.  The repository maintained the current version but also maintained a version trail so that one could see the differences between the current version and versions that had been circulated earlier.  Ultimately that system provided a foundation for the updated and more sophisticated electronic systems that the court uses today.

Justice Doerfer's automation work earned him the gratitude of the entire secretarial corps and ultimately the justices.  Both that gratitude and the general affection with which members of the secretarial corps held Gordon are reflected in an order the secretaries collectively issued when the time came for his retirement.  Because it implicitly conveys Gordon's contribution to and impact on the internal workings of the court in a way that perhaps nothing else can, that order is worth memorializing here.  Entitled "In the Matter of the Honorable Gordon L. Doerfer," the order, in its entirety, reads as follows:

"In the matter of the retirement of the Hon. Gordon L. Doerfer, Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court, it is hereby ordered that the Hon. Gordon L. Doerfer shall file a status report with the Judicial Secretaries of the Massachusetts Appeals Court, from time to time, on his new endeavors and family life.  It is further ordered and adjudged, that the said Hon. Gordon L. Doerfer shall, from time to time, visit the court and never sever said friendship with the Judicial secretaries of the Massachusetts Appeals Court.  The request for retirement, in all other respects, is otherwise allowed."

That order, I submit, speaks volumes about Justice Doerfer the colleague, about his positive impact on the people with whom he worked while on the court, and about his impact on the court where he served with such collegial grace.

I recommend that the Attorney General's motion be allowed.

Byron Doerfer, Esquire, addressed the court as follows:

Good afternoon, and may it please the court:  On behalf of the Doerfer family, thank you all so much for being here today to honor my dear father, Gordon Doerfer.  We in the family have been incredibly moved by this court's decision to remember my dad in this way, and we are particularly grateful to Monique Duarte both for her help in 2021, when he passed away, and for leading the charge in setting up this ceremony, now that COVID permits us to gather once again.

My father would like to be remembered as a man who loved his family and loved these courts.  Those who knew my dad outside of court will tell you what a kind, gentle, emotional soul he could be; how he was an excellent lifelong friend; how he never failed to cry when he watched a wedding, even if the wedding was in a movie.  He had lovely, terrible jokes, and he would go to see any film, anytime, anyplace. 

I was very close with my dad.  We were close when I was growing up, and when he got sick, I was one of his primary caregivers.  Despite all of that, I never really got to know him as a judge, never knew his legal mind. 

Today, I am an attorney myself.  I started off as an assistant district attorney in the Boston Municipal Court, and now I am a bar advocate there.  And through this exposure, I have had the privilege and the pleasure of having these last few years filled with instances like this one, where people who knew this side of my dad's life educate me on who this man was when he was not being my dad.  I have learned that my father used his power as a judge to innovate and experiment with court systems.  In addition to the court document management system, I have also learned that he was one of the first to record jury instructions on a tape recorder in the Superior Court. 

He would want the judges in this room to continue that work, to continue to use their power to innovate and improve our court system.  I have learned how deeply he believed that judges ought to be appointed and not elected, and how judicial independence was a cause very near and dear to his heart.  He had a reputation for fairness, intelligence, and integrity, and woe to the attorney who came before him unprepared. 

Most important of all, he was a judge who never forgot the thousands of real people and real lives behind the many cases he saw over the course of his judicial career.  Nor did he forget the hundreds of clerks, court officers, probation officers, and other officials who make the wheels of justice turn. 

While he spent some of his life in the private sector, his professional home was always in the public service.  The first time Gordon Doerfer put on a judge's robe was in 1973, when he was thirty-four years old.  The last time was at seventy-eight, when he officiated my wedding to my beautiful wife, Rana. 

The through line in Justice Gordon Doerfer's life was one of love:  love of country, love for justice, love for community, love for family, love for friends, and love for many of you in this room.  Thank you all for coming together today to celebrate his life once more.

Chief Justice Green responded for the court as follows:

It gives me great pleasure to allow the Attorney General's motion.  The record of these proceedings will be laid upon the records of the Appeals Court.