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BOSTON (State House News Service) — The Governor's Council on Wednesday confirmed attorney Benjamin Adeyinka of Tewksbury to serve on the Housing Court.
Adeyinka, a deputy administrator in the Housing Court's Boston office, will be the first Black judge on the Housing Court, according to Councilor Eileen Duff, who called Adeyinka an "excellent appointment."
"He will probably be also, to my knowledge, the first time we've had a judge who has actually been houseless, you know, while he was in law school and after law school, actually sitting on this court, so nobody understands these issues better," Duff said.
Adeyinka graduated from the Massachusetts School of Law in 2011, and he began his legal career at Orlans Moran PLLC, now known as Orlans PC. At Orlans, he represented lending institutions and financial entities in cases involving contested foreclosures, bankruptcy and title challenges.
Several people affiliated with the Mass. Alliance Against Predatory Lending group testified in opposition to Adeyinka's nomination, arguing that his work for the firm effectively prioritized future property buyers over Bay Staters facing foreclosure.
The council voted 5-0 to confirm the nominee, with Councilor Marilyn Devaney abstaining after her effort to table the vote was defeated. Devaney said she only learned about the vote Tuesday evening.
Devaney urged her colleagues to delay the vote until January to provide more time to understand new evidence that Grace Ross, coordinator of the alliance, provided. Ross said she detailed six cases from his time at Orlans in which paperwork contained legal and sometimes criminal violations.
"As somebody who's a judicial nominee and wants to be a judge, it most importantly shows that he engaged in a practice of the violation of the professional code of conduct as an officer of the court," Ross told the News Service. "He engaged in a practice that is documentable in the public record to misrepresenting to judges -- a judge he wants to be -- documents are untrue, and in some cases, criminal violations."
Devaney argued postponing the vote would give Adeyinka the opportunity to respond to those claims.
"I'm just asking that we table this vote until Jan. 10, that this council will do their due diligence," Devaney said, as she accused a colleague of saying it was too late to process new information. "There's no deadline. The deadline is justice, to me."
Addressing Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, who was presiding over the meeting, Devaney added, "I do not want the governor or you to be embarrassed. Devaney warned the vote would cause "humiliation."
Driscoll countered that the vote was postponed from the last meeting to "give enough time for some due diligence to happen."
During a hearing last month, Adeyinka spoke about his time at Orlans. He said his "biggest challenge was overcoming the public's perception of the clients that I represented."
"It was hard for people on the other side of the case to understand that I am not my client, I merely represent their interests," he said. "I overcame that challenge by remembering my parents' lessons to always treat everyone with respect and dignity, but perhaps most importantly, to be self-aware and recognize that there's real people behind every case with real lives, families and struggles."
Councilor Joseph Ferreira praised Adeyinka, saying he had never seen another nominee garner as much support from top judiciary officials.
"I understand that people don't like the firm that he worked for and maybe everything wasn't done properly at a firm at some point, but that doesn't reflect on him as an individual," Ferreira said. He added, "I would rely on people that I respect to tell me who should be in that position, and like I said, I just think it's astounding the support that he got."
The council on Wednesday also agreed to schedule a 1 p.m. hearing on Jan. 17 for Juvenile Court nominee Jennifer Currie.
Written by Alison Kuznitz, Michael P. Norton/SHNS
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