Rick has represented just about every kind of client in bankruptcy and insolvency proceedings, including debtors, creditors, creditors’ committees, receivers, trustees, and buyers of assets. He was formerly a partner in the Boston law firms of Hale and Dorr (now Wilmer Hale) and Hill & Barlow. His government service has enhanced his expertise and reputation as well. Specifically, the Attorney General of the United States appointed him as the first director and counsel of the Executive Office of United States Trustees; in that position, Rick supervised the implementation of the program which administered Bankruptcy cases nationwide. The Chief Justice of the United States appointed Rick to serve on the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules of the Administrative Conference of the United States, in which capacity Rick participated in drafting the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure. He has also served on the First Circuit’s committee to select Bankruptcy Judges. The Boston Bar Association’s Bankruptcy Law Section presented him with its first Charles Normandin Life Achievement Award.
An expert on ethics as well as commercial law, Rick has served as a hearing officer for the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers. He has testified as an expert witness on ethics and bankruptcy law on several occasions. He is also a contributing author for the Collier Bankruptcy Practice Manual. He is a long-standing member of the American College of Bankruptcy, an invitation-only national association of leading bankruptcy practitioners. He has been listed in Best Lawyers in America since 1987, and has also been consistently selected for inclusion in Chambers USA, as well as being regularly included as a Super Lawyer.
He has served as the co-chair of the Boston Bar Association Senior (55+) Lawyers’ section, and of the Criminal Law Section. He served as a prosecutor in the organized crime section and criminal division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office under Elliot Richardson, and was the Assistant to the Administrator of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration in the United States Department of Justice.
Rick is the former chair of the Lawyers’ Section of Combined Jewish Philanthropies, in Boston.
He has frequently testified as an expert witness on bankruptcy practice and on ethics.
Rick clerked for the Hon. M. Joseph Blumenfeld, United States District Judge for the District of Connecticut. He served in the United States Coast Guard Reserve, including on active duty, finishing his service—miraculously, he says—as a Yeoman First Class.
