When the news broke this week that Bar Counsel had filed a petition for discipline against Kevin Reddington, the headlines ran from “faces bar discipline” to “formally charged” to “is this the end.” A petition is none of those things and all of them. This is what the document is, how the process works, how long it takes, and what it does and does not mean for a lawyer who is in the middle of the most watched criminal case in Massachusetts.
Who disciplines lawyers
Massachusetts lawyers are licensed by the Supreme Judicial Court, and the court disciplines them through two bodies it created under Rule 4:01. The Board of Bar Overseers is a twelve-member board, mostly lawyers with some public members, that adjudicates. The Office of Bar Counsel is the prosecutor: it receives complaints, investigates, and decides what to charge. Neither is a bar association. Membership in the Massachusetts Bar Association is voluntary; the BBO’s jurisdiction is not.
Anyone can file a complaint, and most complaints come from clients. Bar Counsel closes the large majority without charges. Some end in an admonition, a private sanction Bar Counsel can impose for minor, isolated misconduct. The serious ones become a petition for discipline.
What a petition is
A petition for discipline is Bar Counsel’s charging document, the equivalent of an indictment or a civil complaint. It sets out counts, each alleging facts and identifying the Rules of Professional Conduct said to be violated. It is filed with the board and becomes public. It is not a finding. Nothing in it has been tested, and the lawyer has not yet been heard.
Filing one is a decision that the evidence, if believed, would warrant public discipline. Bar Counsel does not file petitions over matters that would end in an admonition, because those are handled without one. So a petition means Bar Counsel believes the case is worth at least a public reprimand. It does not mean Bar Counsel will get one.
What happens next
The answer. The lawyer files a written answer admitting or denying each allegation. Reddington has publicly denied the substance of the Correia count; his formal answer has not been reported.
The hearing. The case is assigned to a hearing committee, usually three volunteers, two lawyers and one public member, or to a special hearing officer. They take evidence at a hearing that runs like a civil bench trial: witnesses under oath, exhibits, cross-examination, and rules of evidence analogous to a civil case. Bar Counsel must prove the facts by a preponderance of the evidence. The committee issues a written report with findings and a recommended sanction.
The board. Either side may appeal the report to the full board, which reviews the record and issues its own memorandum and vote. The board can adopt, modify or reject the committee’s findings and sanction.
The court. If the board’s decision is a public reprimand, the board imposes it. If the sanction is a suspension or disbarment, the board files an information with the SJC, and a single justice holds a hearing and enters the order. The single justice’s decision can be appealed to the full court. The standard the court applies to sanction is “that which is necessary to deter other attorneys and to protect the public,” measured against what comparable cases have drawn.
The clock. Each stage has deadlines, and each stage takes months. A contested petition with four counts and two client witnesses will not be decided this year. Two to three years from petition to final order is typical for a case that goes the distance.
The sanctions
From least to most serious:
- Admonition. Private, imposed by Bar Counsel with the lawyer’s agreement, for minor isolated misconduct. Not the result of a petition.
- Public reprimand. Published by the board. The lawyer keeps practicing.
- Suspension. For a fixed term, from a month to several years. The lawyer must wind down the practice, notify clients and courts, and, for suspensions over a year, petition for reinstatement.
- Disbarment. Removal from the bar, with reinstatement possible only after years and a full hearing. Resignation with discipline pending is treated as its equivalent.
The sanction tracks the conduct. Bar Counsel’s own guidance treats record-keeping failures alone, without misuse of funds, as reprimand territory, and the SJC reduced a recommended reprimand to a private admonition in a 2025 case where two lawyers had run deficient trust-account reconciliations for years. Intentional misuse of client funds, even temporary, is suspension territory and can be disbarment. A misrepresentation to a client about the status of the case, which is one of the Polanco allegations, is an 8.4(c) dishonesty charge and is weighed as such. A clearly excessive fee, by itself, has produced everything from a reprimand to a suspension depending on the facts.
What it means for the Clancy case
Nothing, legally. A lawyer with a pending petition is a lawyer in good standing. He may appear, try cases, and take new clients. Reddington will be in Plymouth Superior Court on September 29 arguing a motion for a required finding and a double jeopardy motion, and the petition will not be mentioned.
Two practical points are worth stating. First, a petition is not a ground for a client to obtain a new lawyer at public expense, and Clancy has shown no sign of wanting one; her lawyer says she has “love” for the jury and confidence in him. Second, if a suspension were ever imposed, a lawyer must withdraw from pending matters, and a court would have to appoint or the client retain successor counsel. That is at least two years and several adverse findings away, and it is the kind of speculation the process is designed to prevent.
Why it took two years
Correia made his allegations public in July 2024. The petition was filed in June 2026. That gap is the investigation: Bar Counsel obtained records, interviewed the complainants, sought a response from the lawyer, and, in the trust-account counts, audited the IOLTA account across eight years. The docket numbers on the petition, one from 2024 and one from 2025, indicate two separate investigations were consolidated. Investigations are confidential. The public learned of the petition not from the board but from reporters who found it, nearly three months after it was filed.
What is the Board of Bar Overseers?
The body the Supreme Judicial Court created under Rule 4:01 to adjudicate lawyer discipline in Massachusetts. Its prosecutorial arm is the Office of Bar Counsel.
Is a petition for discipline a finding of misconduct?
No. It is a charging document. The lawyer answers it, a hearing committee takes evidence, and the board and, for serious sanctions, the SJC decide.
What is the standard of proof?
Preponderance of the evidence, the civil standard, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
How long does bar discipline take?
A contested case typically runs two to three years from petition to final order.
Can a lawyer keep practicing while a petition is pending?
Yes. The lawyer remains in good standing unless and until a suspension or disbarment is ordered.
How do I look up a Massachusetts lawyer’s disciplinary record?
The Board of Bar Overseers publishes public discipline and attorney status at massbbo.org. Pending petitions are public once filed but are not always easy to locate on the site.
Process described from Supreme Judicial Court Rule 4:01 and the Rules of the Board of Bar Overseers. Sanction standard from In re the Discipline of Two Attorneys, SJC-13648 (May 7, 2025). Record-keeping guidance from the Office of Bar Counsel’s published articles. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.