It’s with a heavy heart that we pay our respects and bid farewell to our friend and long-time member of the NLG-Mass Chapter, Brian Flynn. Brian passed away on November 25, 2020 at the age of 62 when his battle with cancer came to an end. His family and friends were at his side. As a stalwart advocate for justice, as a colleague and comrade who stood with us for nearly 30 years, he will be deeply missed.
Brian was an attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services for almost 25 years. He became a nationally recognized expert in unemployment and welfare law, and through his work he improved the lives of countless welfare recipients and unemployed workers. He was brilliant, funny, kind, and modest to a fault. He cherished his role as a mentor and had an enormous impact on the careers of others, which earned him the nickname “The Mayor of GBLS.” His work was recognized not only by the NLG-Mass Chapter, which in 2017 honored him with the “Lawyer Award,” but also by the National Employment Law Project’s Jerry Hildebrand Unemployment Insurance Champion Award and by the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Equal Access to Justice Award. For several year he was an active member of the NLG Dinner Committee and also served on the Chapter’s Board of Directors twice – first in the 1990s and then again from 2018 until the beginning of this year when his illness forced him to step down from the Board.
He graduated from Northeastern University School of Law in 1993, where in recent years he taught courses on welfare law. Brian was also a very effective union leader: he was the president of the Greater Boston Attorneys’ Union (UAW Local 2320) for most of his tenure at GBLS and negotiated and enforced numerous collective bargaining agreements. Before becoming a lawyer, Brian worked at a paint factory, a magazine distributor, a hospital, and a fish market. He was a member of the editorial board of Radical America, an activist with City Life/Vida Urbana, a member of the Angry Arts film collective, and a volunteer and staff member at Gay Community News.
Thank you, Brian. For everything you’ve done in all of those spaces which benefitted so greatly from your dedication and passion.
