Paul T. Dacier is currently executive vice president and general counsel at Indigo Agriculture, Inc., a start-up agricultural technology company that has been referred to as “the world’s most disruptive technology company.”

Earlier, Dacier was executive vice president and general counsel at EMC Corporation; he joined the company in 1990 as its only lawyer at the time and went on to grow the legal function to 120 lawyers. He served under three CEOs’ during 26 years of significant growth. He helped make business history at EMC as he conceived, planned, and implemented its worldwide legal and compliance functions in over 86 countries. He oversaw the company’s internal audit, real estate, and facilities organizations and its, sustainability, aviation, and government affairs departments. He left EMC in 2016 after its merger with Dell Corporation.

People know Dacier as a trusted advisor, a prudent risk-taker, a highly credible trailblazer, and an executive who gets things done. He created a unique and award-winning legal organization that became a true competitive advantage for EMC. He is known for setting the highest standards for integrity and excellence.

Dacier is currently vice-chairman of the board of AerCap Holdings N.V., the world’s largest commercial aircraft leasing company. He is also a member of the board of Progress Software. Dacier was chair and now serves as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board of Boston College Law School. He was appointed chair of the Massachusetts Judicial Nominating Commission in 2015 by Governor Charles Baker and later named co-chair of the Supreme Judicial Court Nominating Commission. He is a former president of the Boston Bar Association, former chair of the New England Legal Foundation, and past president of the Knox Trail Council, Boy Scouts of America.

Dacier earned his BA and JD from Marquette University. He is an Eagle Scout and recipient of the national Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He and his wife, Kim, reside in Sherborn, Massachusetts.

Rita O’Neill is a partner in Sullivan & Cromwell LLP’s general practice group and serves as co-head of the firm’s global private equity group. She has a broad-based practice that includes advising clients on mergers and acquisitions and securities offerings, and providing general corporate advice on disclosure and governance. Over the course of her career, O’Neill has been sought out by leading global clients within a variety of industries, including apparel, financial institutions, health care and life sciences, semiconductors, telecommunications and transportation. She has been widely recognized by industry publications for the complex and strategic transactions in which she specializes and for her contributions to the legal profession. Most recently, she was named among the Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2019 “Most Influential Private Equity Investors & Advisors.”

O’Neill devotes a significant portion of her time to giving back to the legal community. She is co-chair of the ABA’s Acquisition of Public Companies Subcommittee and former chair of its M&A Market Trends Subcommittee and its Deal Points Study on Carveout Transactions. She is a member of S&C’s Women’s Initiative Committee and co-chair of the ABA’s Women in Mergers & Acquisitions Subcommittee, which was formed to promote the recruiting, retention, and promotion of women lawyers in M&A by working with law schools to educate women law school students about the profession, increasing awareness at law firms, promoting networking, and providing business development forums and tools. She is also the co-founder of a national network of senior women dealmakers focused on business generation. O’Neill is co-chair of the Tulane Corporate Law Institute, and regularly participates on panels and guest teaches classes at law schools related to substantive M&A topics, as well as on gender diversity and women in the legal profession.

O’Neill is also an active provider of pro bono legal services, including advising The Valor Academy , a charter school in Los Angeles, which was founded by Boston College alumnus Hrag Hamalian ’05 and referred to O’Neill by chairman of its founding board, Boston College Law School alumnus William A. Ryan, JD’02; and Dollies Making A Difference, an organization of women who have created over 17,000 Dollies and Teddy Bears for children in need all over the world, co-founded by Cindy Simon, the wife of Boston College Law School alumnus William E. Simon Jr., JD’82. Before earning her JD from Boston College Law School, Ms. O’Neill graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. Following law school, she clerked for the Honorable Norman H. Stahl on the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

David Simas is the chief executive officer of the Obama Foundation. A native of Taunton, Massachusetts, he was appointed deputy chief of staff to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in 2007. Simas then joined President Obama’s administration in 2009 as a deputy assistant to the president, working with senior advisors David Axelrod and David Plouffe. In 2012, he served as director of opinion research for President Obama’s reelection campaign. Following the reelection, Simas returned to the White House as assistant to the president and director of the Office of Political Strategy and Outreach. Simas holds a BA in political science from Stonehill College and a JD from Boston College Law School. He serves on the national board of directors of OneGoal. Simas lives in Chicago with his wife, Shauna, and their two daughters.

Evelynne Swagerty, who was born, raised, and educated in Tennessee, retired from Bank of America in 2018 after serving 22 years as an assistant general counsel and senior vice president in the bank’s litigation practice group. At Bank of America (which includes her tenure with BankBoston Financial and FleetBoston Financial), Swagerty served as an in-house counsel overseeing a large portfolio of the bank’s post-foreclosure litigation defense from across the United States. Prior to her career in banking, she served as an assistant attorney general in the Attorney General’s Office (Public Protection Bureau) under both James Shannon and Scott Harshbarger. Following her term as an assistant attorney general, Swagerty was senior counsel with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). 

In addition to her law degree, Swagerty also has a Masters of Social Work (MSW) from Smith College School for Social Work in Northampton, Massachusetts. Prior to practicing law, she worked for nine years as a psychiatric social worker (LICSW) at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she provided direct psychiatric clinical services to individuals, couples, and families through the hospital’s inpatient and outpatient departments.  She also served as the clinical director in the hospital management department for the Department of Mental Health, where she oversaw the clinical work being provided in all of the state-operated psychiatric hospitals.    

Throughout her legal career, Swagerty has been engaged in many legal and non-legal professional activities. Specifically, she was appointed by Governors Romney and Patrick to serve as a Commissioner on the Commonwealth’s Judicial Nominating Commission, evaluating judicial candidates and then advising the governors on the candidates’ suitability for judicial appointment. She has also served in leadership positions with the Massachusetts Black Women Attorneys and with the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts. Evelynne has also served on several corporate, governmental, and nonprofit boards, including the Client Security Board, The Partnership, the board of the Boston Lawyers Group, the Mansfield Music & Arts Society (MMAS) Academy and the board of directors of the Unitarian Church of Sharon. Finally, Swagerty has contributed her skills and experience to several trial court and gubernatorial commissions, including the Commission on Gender Bias in the Courts, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Bias in the Courts, and the Massachusetts Adoption Task Force.

Since retirement in 2018, Swagerty has been a fellow with the Access to Justice Program, an entity under the auspice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and Lawyers Clearinghouse. In this program, retired attorneys and judges provide pro bono volunteer services to their choice of a Boston area nonprofit.  As a fellow, Swagerty volunteers for the nonprofit Boston CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), an organization that recruits, trains, and supervises volunteers from the community who are appointed to serve as guardian ad litem to Care and Protection cases in the Boston and Middlesex counties’ juvenile courts. The Boston CASA program is designed to ensure that the needs of children in foster care are met and to aid the court in making difficult decisions that impact the lives of these children. 

Throughout her career, Swagerty has been an active and engaged supporter of Boston College Law School. Over the years, she has served as an alumni representative on numerous committees─as a representative of the Boston College Law School Alumni Council, and its Nominating Committee; as an officer and board member of BC Law’s Black Alumni Network; as an alumni volunteer for the Client Counseling Competition and Moot Court Competition, and for many years, as a member of the Law Day Committee. She considers her contribution of time, effort, and commitment to be a rewarding endeavor.  Swagerty has been married for 30 years to her co-awardee, Wilbur P. Edwards Jr., JD’84.

Judge Edwards commenced his legal career in 1981 upon admission to Boston College Law School. He completed his studies, graduating with a Juris Doctor degree in 1984. He initially worked as an associate at Roche, Carens & DeGiacomo, where he concentrated primarily in commercial real estate, affordable housing, construction, and title law. Following his stint at that firm, he joined Denzil McKenzie & Associates which subsequently became the partnership of McKenzie & Edwards, PC in 1990.   While a principal of the firm, Edwards continued to develop a diverse real estate and corporate practice including affordable housing, title and title insurance, landlord-tenant matters, residential and commercial conveyancing, and both for-profit and nonprofit corporate organization. In addition to extensive attention to serving the firm’s clientele and growing the firm with his partner, Edwards also held volunteer and leadership positions with the Massachusetts Bar Association serving as co-chair of the Real Estate Section, secretary of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association, incorporator and president of the Boston College Black Alumni Network, and a member of the Boston College Law School Alumni Council.  Additionally, he volunteered to mentor law school graduates with their preparation for the bar exam. He has been actively involved with his church, the Unitarian Church of Sharon, serving as vice president, membership chair, and a coming-of-age youth mentor.

In 2002, Massachusetts Acting Governor Jane Swift appointed Edwards to the Southeast Housing Court of the Massachusetts Trial Court to sit in the Brockton courthouse. Over the following 16-plus years, Edwards and one colleague served Plymouth, Bristol, and Barnstable Counties (five courthouses) conducting bench and jury trials involving landlord-tenant disputes, zoning issues, sanitary and building code violations, temporary restraining orders for housing issues, and hoarding complaints. In addition to his judicial duties, Edwards served on both Trial Court and Supreme Judicial Court committees, including the Interpreters Committee, the Media Committee and the Wellness Committee. Edwards received an honorary degree from Southern New England School of Law (now the University of Massachusetts School of Law) during his tenure. He also serves on the board and is the current treasurer of the Massachusetts Judges Conference. He is a member and past president of the Massachusetts Black Judges Conference, and he continues to mentor both recent law school graduates and applicants for judicial and clerical appointments. He has been a lecturer at Boston College Law School, Southern New England School of Law, Tufts University, and MCLE. Edwards retired from the bench in December 2018.

In December 2019, Governor Charles Baker appointed now retired Edwards to a five-year term as a commissioner of the State Ethics Commission. In addition to that position, Edwards is a fellow in the Access to Justice Fellows Program with Lawyers Clearinghouse. He currently volunteers as a mentor two days a week with the nonprofit Justice Bridge program, a legal incubator for new solo practitioners, with locations in New Bedford and Boston.

Edwards was born in Yokohama, Japan, the son of Major Wilbur P. Edwards Sr. and Mary C. Edwards. His early years were spent throughout the eastern United States and Germany at various U.S. Army posts. After completing high school in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, he graduated cum laude from Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1971 with a BA in social relations. Immediately following college, he started a business career in commercial real estate with Purity Supreme Supermarkets in Massachusetts as a real estate representative acquiring locations for convenience stores. That position was followed by a similar position with Grand Union Supermarkets in New Jersey. In 1974, he became the northeast division real estate manager for the Southland Corporation (7-Eleven) involving management of site acquisition personnel for locating and building convenience stores throughout New England, New York, and New Jersey. Beginning in 1979, Edwards spent two years as a real estate manager for Toys “R” Us with responsibility for locating stores in Illinois, Michigan, Maryland/Virginia, and Florida. Edwards has been married for 30 years to co-awardee Evelynne L. Swagerty JD’84. He is the proud parent of Arielle Belson Bennett and Marissa Avery Edwards and grandfather of two grandsons.

Alexis Anderson, associate clinical professor emerita, retired from Boston College Law School in June 2019, following a 36-year career in legal education during which she mentored generations of caring, thoughtful litigators.

Anderson was appointed a clinical professor at BC Law School in 1983. Her academic career principally included serving as a clinical supervisor and, for five years, director at Boston College Legal Services LAB (BCLAB), which provides civil representation to low-income clients in communities surrounding the law school. For several years she served as project director for the Disability Benefits Project, a grant to BCLAB from the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation to assist clients in obtaining federal disability benefits, and was BCLAB’s representative on the Massachusetts State-Wide Legal Services Project Directors. Anderson also designed and taught first-year experiential courses, directed externship programs, offered courses on professional responsibility and legal history, and authored numerous publications and presentations, principally in the field of clinical legal education.

For several summers, Anderson served as project director for the U.S. State Department’s Fulbright Summer Institute in Reform in American History and Law, a six-week graduate level course at Boston College for foreign-university professors.  Her career included teaching a seminar at Paris Nanterre University on the development of free speech theory and offering courses in law school and university programs in London, Beijing, and Tashkent. Anderson also held terms as chair of the New England Externship Task Force and as a member of the AALS Committee on Clinical Education.

Anderson graduated from Wake Forest University and received her JD and MA in legal history from the University of Virginia.

Sophia Hall is a civil rights attorney at Lawyers for Civil Rights in Boston, Massachusetts, and she currently serves as the supervising attorney. As an experienced litigator, she handles a broad range of civil rights matters, actively representing people of color and immigrant women to protect their rights in the workplace and in the community. Her employment and police misconduct work is regularly featured in publications such as the New York Times and the Boston Globe. Sophia is a 2012 graduate of Boston College Law School and holds a bachelor’s degree from Emory University. She has been recognized as one of Boston’s Top 25 Most Influential Millennials of Color, an “Up & Coming Lawyer” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, and an “Emerging Leader” by the Women’s Bar Association.