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For Immediate ReleaseNov. 18, 2010Dave Sullivan for District AttorneyDaveSullivan.org

Northwestern District Attorney-Elect Sullivan Forms TransitionTeam

Northwestern District Attorney-Elect Dave Sullivan thanks the voters ofHampshire and Franklin counties and the Town of Athol for placingtheir confidence in him and has announced that he has formed aNorthwestern District Attorney Transition Team.

The team will assist Sullivan in putting into place a leadership teamthat will begin work following Sullivans official swearing-in ceremonyin Northampton, Jan. 5, 2011 in Hampshire Superior Court and at.

With the help of the Transition Team I expect to be able to assemblethe best team of prosecutors and staff in Massachusetts, Sullivansaid.

The Transition Teams mission is as follows:

To advise and guide the District Attorney-elect and his team inbuilding an outstanding and successful District Attorneys Office;

To ensure a professional and effective transition from District

Attorney Elizabeth Scheibels administration to the newadministration;

To assist with the retention, recruitment, and hiring of qualitystaff and attorneys;

To develop and provide recommendations for improving thedelivery of justice, protection of the public, and safeguarding ofthe rights of all;

To plan and advise on future community-based justice programs,advisory boards, and committees for the District AttorneysOffice;

To develop recommendations to make the District AttorneysOffice more accessible and responsive to the needs of cities,towns, and people in the Northwestern District;

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To establish plans for implementation of a CommunityProsecution program for the 47 communities of the NorthwesternDistrict;

To establish plans and goals to strengthen law enforcement

collaboration and assistance within the Northwestern District;

The Transition Team will help plan the swearing-in ceremonies inNorthampton and Greenfield on January 5, 2011, about which moredetails will be made available at a later date.

The Transition Team will be in place until April 1, 2011.

The members of the transition team include Thomas Merrigan, DavidAngier, Janice Healy, Martha Murphy Kane, Patricia Romney, MaryCarey and Joy Rain. Brief biographies follow.

Thomas T. Merrigan, of Greenfield, chairperson of the committee,has been 8th District Governor's Councillor since 2006. He was anOrange District Court judge for 12 years, stepping down in 2002, and iscurrently a partner in Rawson, Merrigan & Litner, LLP. He received theTrial Court Judge of the Year award in 2000 and Achievement inRestorative Justice Award in 2001.

David Angier, of Conway, is a former first assistant NorthwesternDistrict Attorney. Since 2003, he has been a partner at Allison, Angier

& Bartmon, LLP, in Amherst, with a focus on employment law, personalinjury, discrimination, and civil litigation. He was instrumental instrengthening Massachusetts child abuse laws.

Janice Healy, of Conway, has been the chief of the WesternMassachusetts Regional Office of the Attorney General's Office for thepast 11 years. She began her legal career as a staff attorney with thepublic defender's office in Springfield. Following four years as a publicdefender, she spent the next 12 years in private practice in Springfieldas an associate in the law firm of Antonucci and Associates and as apartner in the firm of Dalsey, Ferrara and Healy, concentrating in

criminal defense and civil litigation. Prior to her appointment as Chiefof the Western Massachusetts Division in 1999, Healy was the chiefadministrator for Legal Options, Inc., an alternative dispute resolutionfirm.

Martha Murphy Kane, of Holyoke, is currently Hampden SuperiorCourt supervisor for the Hampden County District Attorneys Office, inSpringfield, where she has worked since 1987. She was a member of

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the Public Safety Council of Hampden County, the Western RegionalHomeland Security Council and City Wide Violence Prevention TaskForce and is the coordinator of the Hampden County Parole & ReentryCommittee.

Patricia Romney, of Amherst, is president and founder of RomneyAssociates, which has assisted organizations in the areas of diversity,community building, and leadership development for the past 30years. She is a visiting associate professor of psychology at MountHolyoke College and a core faculty member in the OrganizationalPsychology Masters Program at the Massachusetts School ofProfessional Psychology. She maintains a small clinical practicespecializing in geriatric psychology.

Mary Carey, of Amherst, has been an adjunct instructor of journalismat UMass Amherst since 2002 and was a Daily Hampshire Gazette

reporter from 1994-2009.

Joy Rain, of Northampton, is currently a real estate agent at DelapReal Estate, LLC. She has been in the business of change for over 15years as a diversity and inclusion consultant, life coach, University ofMassachusetts social justice education research associate, andprofessor of psychology and womens studies at Pine Manor College inChestnut Hill.

Northwestern District Attorney-elect Sullivan has been an attorney for

23 years, serving for 16 years as a trial attorney and advocate. He wasthe city attorney for Easthampton from March 1999 to Dec. 2002before his election in 2002 to Register of Probate for HampshireProbate and Family Court.

In 2008, he was one of two Massachusetts lawyers chosen to receivethe Massachusetts Bar Foundation's President Award for "extraordinaryvolunteerism, leadership, and commitment to increasing access tojustice in Massachusetts."

He has been chairman of the Easthampton Board of Assessors,

president of the Citizen's Scholarship Foundation of Easthampton andpresident of Western Massachusetts Shelter for Homeless Veterans. Hehas been a member of the Northampton Domestic Violence-Free ZoneCommittee and the Easthampton Inter-Faith Cot Shelter.

A 1981 graduate of the Isenberg School of Management at theUniversity of Massachusetts and a 1986 graduate of the NortheasternUniversity School of Law, Sullivan is married to Catherine Hancock and

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they have three daughters.