Tense Fight in Guv Council District 4 Over One Vote

District 3 Governor's Councilor Mara Dolan [left]. Candidate for District 3 Governor's Council Margie Palladino [right].

Sam Drysdale | SHNS

Votes on judicial nominees matter.  A single such vote that Governor's Council Mara Dolan cast in April has spurred a fierce primary election bid against her.

Democratic challenger Margie Palladino said Dolan failed domestic abuse survivors by backing Margie Ferriter as an associate justice for Probate and Family Court. Dolan continues to call Ferriter highly qualified and says Palladino is running a single-issue campaign.

The District 3 council seat covers parts of Boston as well as Brookline, Cambridge, Newton, Waltham, and about two dozen other communities in Middlesex and Worcester counties. Dolan is from Concord, and Palladino is from Wellesley. But the energy given to the two sides is emblematic of the concerns in the electorate over the life-changing power wielded by those appointed to the bench.

Palladino, a retired trial attorney and domestic abuse advocate who co-founded the Mass Family Advocacy Coalition, entered the race just two and a half weeks before the April 28 ballot deadline, after Dolan voted for Ferriter's nomination on April 1. The Governor's Council confirmed Ferriter, a former director of the high Conflict Parent Education Program at William James College, by a 4-3 vote.

The program, which was intended to help separated parents navigate high-conflict co-parenting, had drawn criticism from anti-domestic abuse advocates who said survivors were required to participate in the nine-week course alongside their alleged abusers. The program was discontinued in 2024.

Palladino said the vote was the catalyst for her campaign after women involved in the domestic abuse advocacy community urged her to challenge Dolan. She said her advocacy work has focused on reforming the Probate and Family Court following her own experience as a party in court.

"When that vote happened, I knew I had to do it," Palladino said.

She said she had supported Dolan's 2024 campaign after meeting with her alongside domestic abuse survivors who shared their experiences and heard Dolan pledge to support victims of intimate partner violence.

"The women felt so betrayed," she said. "This was the time for her to show that she listens to her constituents."

Palladino said the Governor's Council's responsibility to scrutinize judicial nominees is especially important because Massachusetts judges, once confirmed, can remain on the bench until age 70.

Dolan, who defeated 25-year incumbent Marilyn Petitto Devaney in 2024 after campaigning on her experience as a public defender, defended both Ferriter's qualifications and her work on the council at large.

"I voted with full confidence that that judge would be superb, and she is," Dolan said. "She was one of the most, if not the most, highly recommended, qualified, and experienced nominees that we've seen."

Dolan said she vetted Ferriter extensively before the vote and spoke with many people during the confirmation process. Since Ferriter took the bench, Dolan said, attorneys who have appeared before her have contacted the councilor to praise her performance.

"I appreciate the calls because they know what I've had to deal with, but I have not been surprised. I knew that she would be superb, and she is," Dolan said.

The controversy centers on how Ferriter's former program handled cases involving intimate partner violence.

Palladino said the program could put survivors in the position of having to interact with an alleged abuser, often in-person except when the classes were held remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, and argued that its approach was inconsistent with a trauma-informed judicial system.

Ferriter offered a more qualified account of the program at her March confirmation hearing. She said the program was intended primarily to teach parents how to communicate and protect children from conflict.

"The cases that get the most out of the program are not the cases where there is coercive control, where there is violence, where there is any kind of serious issue of abuse," she said.

Ferriter acknowledged that some participants with restraining orders were allowed to participate only after the orders were modified. She described one case in which she initially believed a woman should not participate because of her traumatic experiences with the co-parent she would have to take the class with, but said the woman insisted on staying in the program because she feared losing access to her children if she did not participate.

Ferriter said instructors were attentive to domestic violence and in cases where one parent had a restraining order, allowed them to leave the class first before the alleged abuser left.

"We were very mindful of what went on," Ferriter said.

A councilor who opposed Ferriter's nomination, Tara Jacobs, described receiving substantial public opposition before the vote, saying, "I'm sure I'm not alone in having my inbox flooded with opposition that is both systemic on the Probate and Family Court issues surrounding that court, but very specifically experiences of this specific nominee."

Palladino says that the program was not appropriate for abuse survivors.

"So to say that that's a trauma-informed judge is just not taking into consideration anything about that program," Palladino said.

Dolan argued that the program was court-ordered, and Ferriter just oversaw it: "She did not order anyone into the program. She did not screen anyone in or screen anyone out. So she had nothing to do with who attended the program."

Dolan added that Ferriter only directed the program for part of her "37-year career."

"She's had many clients who she's helped," Dolan said. "That program helped many people. Eighty-five percent of the people who went through said it was helpful for them."

Dolan said Palladino is effectively running a single-issue campaign centered on Ferriter, while she is seeking another term based on the range of issues before the council.

Dolan pointed to her support for judicial nominees informed about systemic racism, addiction and recovery, juvenile justice and immigration enforcement. She said she has led the effort to have judges agree to permit people to record Immigration and Customs Enforcement in their courtrooms "so that people can still exercise their bystander rights."

Financially, Dolan entered the race with an advantage over Palladino's late start. Dolan has raised $34,701 for her campaign, compared with $21,401 for Palladino. Palladino said the compressed timeline meant building a campaign operation from scratch while collecting more than 1,700 signatures in roughly two weeks.

She said much of her financial support has come from longtime friends and supporters who know her for her advocacy work. She said her fiercest supporters are domestic abuse survivors, many of whom she said cannot contribute publicly because of concerns about retaliation from their abusers.

"I'm running, and I'm running, as fast as I can," she said.

Sam Drysdale is a reporter for State House News Service and State Affairs Pro Massachusetts.