“Ex-AG Reilly takes post with Greenberg Traurig”
Former Attorney General Tom Reilly is joining the Boston office of the powerhouse law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP.
Reilly, who left office last month after an unsuccessful bid for governor last year, said he’s looking forward to working at the giant firm, which has 1,600 attorneys and government affairs personnel.
“This is a powerful team,” said Reilly, who served as attorney general for eight years. “I’m looking forward to it. We’ll be working a lot on business matters.”
Greenberg Traurig is one of the major law firms that pursued lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Boston in the Scandal, most notably behind their lawyer Roderick MacLeish. He represented an alleged victim of Paul Shanley, while the firm itself represented more than half of the 450 plaintiffs who settled with the archdiocese. Reilly, for his part, was a grandstander as attorney general, who made threats ranging from indicting Cardinal Bernard Law to stripping the Church of her First Amendment rights, but in the end did little but issue a report.
Greenberg Traurig had been criticized for setting up a “victims’ foundation” and soliciting funds on its behalf. For itself, the firm has earned a large chunk of the more than $1 billion in billings paid to lawyers suing the Church on behalf of their clients, even as some claim that there is a network of plaintiffs’ lawyers seeking more victims to represent, political lobbyists seeking to change laws to favor suits, and Planned Parenthood and other sex advocates seeking to blunt the Church’s voice and get her off their backs. Adding the attorney general from the state where some of the most lucrative of these suits was filed can only help their cause.
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