Crispin Birnbaum began her legal career in state government in 1984 as a Middlesex County assistant district attorney. In the district attorney’s office, she prosecuted cases such as misdemeanors and felonies- including homicide, sexual assault, and white-collar crimes. In 1995, she was named chief prosecutor in the Public Protection Bureau of the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General. As chief prosecutor, Crispin both prosecuted and supervised the prosecution of a variety of crimes involving the protection of consumer rights, civil rights, elderly and health care fraud, patient abuse, investment scams, and telemarketing fraud.
Following a two-year stint as chief prosecutor, Crispin became a member of the Trial Division in the Government Bureau of the Attorney General’s Office where her focus switched to civil litigation. It was in this position that she defended the Commonwealth, its agencies and employees in contract, tort, eminent domain, civil rights and employment matters both defensively and affirmatively. She was given the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in 2005.
In 2006, Crispin was named DYS General Counsel where she supervised a legal staff of 10, advising the statewide agency on matters of policy, training, investigations, litigation, legislation, regulation, administration, and management. She also served as General Counsel for the Massachusetts Probation Service (MPS), a statewide agency, from 2013 to 2018 when she retired.
Throughout her career, Crispin has contributed as a faculty member on both criminal and civil panels with Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE), Massachusetts Bar Association (MBA), Boston Bar Association (BBA), and the Flaschner Institute. She has been an instructor at several Harvard Trial Advocacy Workshops and has spoken at a conference on juvenile justice issues in Washington, D.C. In 2017, she was recognized as one of the Top Women in Law by the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.
Since 2018, Crispin has been an Access to Justice Fellow with Lawyers Clearinghouse and Veterans Legal Services. In 2019, she co-founded the Clearinghouse’s CORI Sealing & Expungement Clinic which continues to the present. She trains and supervises CORI clinic volunteers, providing guidance before, during, and after twice-monthly virtual CORI Clinics.
Crispin regularly provides free criminal records, sealing, expungement trainings for direct care staff and free informational workshops for people with CORIs across the Commonwealth. She supports CORI relief work at Western New England Law School and Harvard Law School. The Supreme Judicial Court honored Crispin with one of its Adams Pro Bono Publico Awards for her CORI relief work. In August, 2023, the Boston Bar Journal published an article Crispin wrote about the CORI relief system in Massachusetts and opportunities for reform.
Check out this post to learn more about Crispin’s work with us, or reach out to her via email to set up a free virtual or in-person training or workshop.