Dermot Meagher

Early life and education Meagher received an A.B. from Harvard University and an LL.B. from Boston College Law School. He received a fellowship in Criminal Justice at Harvard Law school for 1969-1970 and a master's degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School at Harvard in 1980.

Legal career He began his legal career as an Assistant District Attorney in Worcester County, Massachusetts. He was in private practice various times. He ran the Percentage Deposit Bail Project in the early 1970s, which reformed the bail system, effectively eliminating bail bondsmen in Massachusetts. He was First Assistant Bar Counsel at the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers and a volunteer member of the Boston Human Rights Commission. In 1969-70 he was a Fellow at the Harvard Law School Center for Criminal Justice which was funded by the Ford Foundation where he became concerned with bail and other forms of pretrial release.

Personal Meagher was a recovering alcoholic who achieved sobriety in 1975; he came out of the closet shortly thereafter. Meagher died on December 28, 2023.

Works