Karen Green

Judge Karen Green (ret.) has litigated and resolved cases in federal and state courts as a federal prosecutor, private practitioner, trial judge, and neutral. The principal of Green Law LLC, she currently resolves disputes as a member of the American Arbitration Association’s Roster of Commercial Arbitrators and National Judicial Payor-Provider Panel, and of REBA Dispute Resolution’s panel of mediators.

Green also co-chairs the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Leadership Council, chairs the National Association of Women Judges’ Ad Hoc Subcommittee to Preserve the Rule of Law, and serves on the Executive Board of the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights, the Advisory Board of Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Coalition, and as an instructor in Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop.

From 2016 to 2022, Green was an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court. She presided over both criminal and civil cases, including complex commercial disputes in the Business Litigation Session.

Green was a partner at WilmerHale and its legacy firm, Hale and Dorr, for many years before she became a judge. She focused her practice on complex business litigation, including the defense of white-collar criminal and False Claims Act litigation. Green served on WilmerHale’s Executive Committee, co-chaired its Litigation/Controversy Department, and chaired Hale and Dorr’s Litigation Department. She also was a director or trustee of various other organizations, including Fiduciary Trust Company, CareGroup, Inc., the Massachusetts Taxpayers’ Foundation, and the Foundation of the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary. Clients and peers consistently recognized her as a litigation leader in Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA, New England Super Lawyers, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Boston Magazine, and other publications.

Earlier in her career, Green worked as the First Assistant US Attorney for the Federal District of Massachusetts, Chief of Staff to Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld, and an assistant US attorney. She also clerked for US District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr.

A Somerville native, Green is a lifetime Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the Boston Bar Foundation, and Litigation Counsel of America, of which she was President in 2016. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard/Radcliffe College, a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, and a 2015 Fellow of Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative.