Massachusetts Law Update

For many years, legislative history on Massachusetts statutes has been notoriously difficult—if not impossible—to find.  To help remedy this problem, Professor Sean Kealy wrote “A Guide to Gathering and Using Legislative History in Massachusetts,” which was published in the Massachusetts Law Review.   In addition, every student who has taken Professor Kealy’s Legislative Policy & Drafting Clinic at Boston University School of Law has participated in the Massachusetts Legislative History Project.  Students picked a recently passed statute and gathered as much relevant information and documents that they could during the semester. Our histories include the procedural history of the statute,  testimony submitted to the relevant committees, journal entries, speeches given on the floors of the Senate and House and committee reports.  In addition, students write a final memorandum describing their efforts—where they found information, where they did not, and where information may exist—but to which they did not have access.  Hopefully, these documents will be an ongoing service to the Massachusetts bench and bar.

S. Kealy, “A Guide to Gathering and Using Legislative History in Massachusetts,” 97 Massachusetts Law Review 46 (2016)
https://www.massbar.org/media/1671212/v97n3.pdf