Janet H. Pumphrey


E-mail: jpumphrey@k-plaw.com
Phone: 413.637.4300
Practice Areas: General Municipal, Appellate Litigation

Attorney Janet Hetherwick Pumphrey is the Director of the Western Massachusetts office. Her broad municipal law background includes serving for five years as Assistant City Solicitor in the City of Pittsfield and 15 years as a Selectman in the Town of Lenox. She specializes in appellate litigation and has almost two hundred appearances in the appellate courts of the Commonwealth. Attorney Pumphrey counsels municipalities on post-judgment issues and provides representation in the Appeals Court and the Supreme Judicial Court. Additionally, she has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Massachusetts Law Review as well as on Governor Romney’s Judicial Nominating Commission.

Public Office

Town of Lenox, MA
Selectman (1993-Present)

Prior Experience

City of Pittsfield
Assistant City Solicitor (1992-1997)
Municipal law, public procurement and construction, labor and employment, legislative, contracts, real property, taxation, community development, administrative law, civil litigation, constitutional law.

Western New England College School of Law
Adjunct Faculty (1992-1997)

Memberships & Affiliations

  • Massachusetts Bar Association
    • Appelate Bench Bar Committee
    • Criminal Justice Selection Council
  • Board of Editors of the Massachusetts Law Review; Associate Editor (1991-1993; 2003-present); Comments Editor (1993-1997); Articles Editor (1997-2000); Editor-in-Chief (2000-2003)
  • American Bar Association, Council of Appellate Lawyers
  • Fellow, Massachusetts Bar Foundation
  • Judicial Nominating Commission (2003-2005)
  • Pittsfield Economic Revitalization Corporation (1997-present)

Bar & Court Admissions

  • Massachusetts Bar
  • U.S. District Court (Mass.)
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
  • Supreme Court of the United States

Publications

  • Book review of Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation’s Top Advocates, by Ross Guberman, and How to Write a Sentence: and How to Read One, by Stanley Fish, to be published in the Massachusetts Law Review.
  • Book review of Thinking Like a Writer: A Lawyer’s Guide to Effective Writing and Editing by Stephen V. Armstrong and Timothy P. Terrell, Massachusetts Law Review, Vol. 92, No. 1, April 2009.
  • “Habeas Corpus: Subject Matter Jurisdiction,” to be published by Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education in Habeas Corpus: Practice and Procedure, February 2010.
  • “Portia’s Complaint,” The Women’s Times, Vol. 4, No. 7, April 1997.
  • “Divorce Mediation: How and When Mediation Benefits Divorcing Couples”, The Women’s Times, Vol. 3, No. 3, March 1996.
  • Case Comment on State Ethics Commission v. John Doe, 417 Mass. 522 (1994), 79 Massachusetts Law Review December, 1994.
  • “A Tribute to Dean Howard I. Kalodner”, 16 Western New England Law Review (1994).
  • Case Comment on Reardon v. United States, 947 F.2d 1509 (1st Cir. 1991), 77 Massachusetts Law Review, September 1992.
  • “The ‘Bona Fide Offer’ of Sale Requirement in the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act”, 11 Western New England Law Review, 1990.

Education

Western New England College School of Law
Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, 1990
Editor-in-Chief (1989-1990), Associate Editor (1988-1989) Western New England Law Review

Newcomb College, Tulane University
Bachelor of Arts, 1971