Hon. Jay Bliztman (Ret.)

Judge Jay Blitzman (Retired) served as the First Justice of the Massachusetts Middlesex County Juvenile Court Division. Prior to his twenty-four year judicial career Jay was a public defender and the first director of the Roxbury Youth Advocacy Project, a multi-disciplinary legal services unit which was the basis for creating a state wide public defender division.

Jay was a co-founder of the Massachusetts Citizens for Juvenile Justice (CfJJ), and our Our RJ, a community based diversionary restorative justice initiative. Jay serves on the advisory boards of CfJJ and UTEC, a youth and emerging adult program in Lowell, MA. He is a member of the American Bar Association Youth At Risk Commission and was the 2019 recipient of the ABA Livingston Hall Juvenile Justice Award. In 2018, Jay was the first person to receive the Massachusetts Bar Association Juvenile and Child Justice Welfare Award.

In 2020, Judge Blitzman was appointed as the ABA Advisor to the Study Committee on the Criminalization of School Discipline of the Uniform Law Commission. During his judicial career, Jay served on a wide array of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Committees and was a designated judicial mentor. He is currently a member of the S.J.C. Standing Committee on Eyewitness Identification. Judge Blitzman publishes and presents extensively on issues which include racial and ethnic equity, juvenile and criminal systemic reform and adolescent development.

He holds teaching positions at Harvard Law School (Trial Advocacy), Northeastern University School of Law (Juvenile Law), and Boston College Law School (Cradle to Prison Pipeline). Jay is the chair of the Juvenile Committee of Northeastern Law School Criminal Justice Reform Working Group. Judge Blitzman is also a faculty member of the juvenile and emerging adult/late adolescence committee of the Center for Law Brain Behavior (CLBB- Harvard; M.G.H.).

As an Access to Justice Fellow, Judge Blitzman will partner with More than Words, working with youth involved in the juvenile and child welfare systems to help them navigate the system and the courts and to provide pro bono representation as needed. He will also provide support to legal advocates and work to develop continuing legal education (CLE) programming.