Hon. Rudolph Kass, Ret.

RKass@themediationgroup.org

Practice Areas: Civil Mediation, Arbitration

From January,1979 to September, 2003, Rudy Kass served as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court. During his tenure, he was the author of 1,680 opinions of the court as well as approximately 200 single justice memoranda and orders.

Prior to his appointment to the court, he was a partner in the Boston law firm, Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer. His area of specialty was real estate, concentrating in urban affairs, i.e., urban renewal projects and government assisted housing, zoning, land use planning law, real estate financing, eminent domain and taxation. He was on the drafting committee that wrote the Massachusetts condominium law and was an active practitioner in that area. As counsel to the 1965 special legislative commission on low income housing, he was a principal draftsman of the statute that created the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency.

Rudy obtained his A.B. from Harvard College in 1952 and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1956.

During the period between his retirement in June, 2000 from the Appeals Court at the constitutionally mandated age, and before being recalled for additional service on the court acted as a mediator and arbitrator. He chaired a gubernatorial task force on ferry service to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket and an advisory board to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts on what court records should be made available on the world wide web. Rudy also acted as an expert on Massachusetts law for the United States State Department in an arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Among his community activities, Rudy has been a president of the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly, and the Ford Hall Forum. He has served as a member of the executive committee of the Board of Trustees of Brigham and Women's Hospital. Currently he serves as a director of JCHE and Law Advocacy & Resource Center. In his home town of Arlington he has served as an elected town meeting member, a member of the conservation commission, and a trustee of the Schwamb Mill Preservation Trust. He is a member of the Supreme Judicial Court Judiciary/Media Response Team.

Rudy is an adjunct professor of law at Boston College Law School where he co-teaches a real estate course built around a complex commercial lease. He has lectured and written frequently in continuing legal education settings, in former years on real estate related subjects and more recently about appellate practice. He was the editor and author of several chapters in "Legal Chowder; Lawyering and Judging in Massachusetts," published in 2002 by Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc.