John Mullen, a gentleman first, then a lawyer; at 95
John Madden Mullen so loved the law and its power to improve the human condition that he continued to practice it until he was 86.
Described as "a lawyer's lawyer" and a man of integrity, Mr. Mullen handled civil law cases for five decades. He spent at least 12 of those years as special counsel to the Massachusetts Senate.
"While some [lawyers] could be acidic in their expressions, John Mullen was just the opposite," William M. Bulger, a former Senate president, said of the man he chose as counsel during his leadership. "He was a person who never hurt anyone with his words."
Mr. Mullen, who from 1968 to 1974 was a prime mover on a Boston Bar Association committee to revamp and streamline the minutiae of civil law procedure for the courts of the Commonwealth, died Saturday at his Newton home after a long neurological illness. He was 95 and a member of both the Massachusetts and New Hampshire bar associations.
As a result of his efforts to rewrite the protocol for the courts in matters such as processing civil suits, drafting a pleading, and filing an appeal, Mr. Mullen became known as "the father of the Massachusetts rules of civil procedure," Bulger recalled. Before Mr. Mullen's efforts, he said, the rules were "a hodge podge."
One of Mr. Mullen's daughters, Katherine E., a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society in New York, recalled that in her childhood , her father spent so much time at the Social Law Library at the Supreme Judicial Court while drafting the rules that she and her sisters "used to call him there to say goodnight."
Mr. Mullen first came to Bulger's attention in the early 1980s, when a coalition of citizen groups started an initiative petition for legislative reform and to curb the powers of legislative leaders. Bulger opposed the effort.
Headed by Milton Paisner of North Andover, the case called for "a substantive recasting of the legislative rules of procedure," Bulger said. He was opposed, he said, "because each branch of the Legislature makes its own rules. John Mullen came up with every bit of history to support that and wrote a wonderful brief. He made me look smart. He went before a justice of the court and argued that the only body that could make rules for the Senate was the Senate," Bulger said.
In September 1983, the Globe quoted Mr. Mullen as saying, "The initiative petition strikes at the heart of the legislative process." The Supreme Judicial Court agreed, deciding that "the Massachusetts Constitution gives the Legislature exclusive power to set its own procedural rules."
When he was special counsel to the Senate, some of Mr. Mullen's responsibilities were "to help fashion proposed statutes and amendments," Bulger said.
Born in Manchester, N.H., he was one of six children of Mary (Madden) and Walter P. Mullen Sr. He graduated from Cathedral High School in Manchester. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Montreal, a master's from Catholic University and his law degree from Georgetown University.
Mr. Mullen was associated with Ropes, Gray, Best, Coolidge & Rugg from 1945 to 1950 and Weston, Patrick & Church from 1957 to 1969. Charles Holly, with the firm now known as Weston Patrick, described him as "a gentle man and a gentleman." Mr. Mullen and Katherine (Cotter), now Holly's para legal, married in 1960.
More than he loved the law, Mr. Mullen loved his family and his church, said his daughter, Mary P. of Wellesley, a cardiologist at Children's Hospital. "Dad was very scholarly," she said. "He was very encouraging to his three daughters to pursue academics. He had a strong sense of conscience and urged us to be of service to others."
Another daughter, Elizabeth A. of Needham, said her father "could not go to the grocery store without telling people he had two daughters who were doctors and one who was a lawyer. Dad loved learning beyond everything."
Besides his wife and three daughters, Mr. Mullen leaves a sister, Marguerite Fitzgerald of Manchester, N.H., and seven grandchildren. Services have been held.
