The Honorable Frank J. Bailey

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, District of Massachusetts

Frank J. Bailey was appointed on January 30, 2009, and he served as Chief Judge from 2010 until 2014. His chambers are in Boston and he is assigned to the Eastern Division. He was born in Kingston, New York, received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service (BSFS) in 1977 and his JD from Suffolk University School of Law (Boston) in 1980. He also serves on the First Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel. Judge Bailey taught legal writing and research at Boston University School of Law from 1981 to 1993. He currently teaches Business Reorganizations at Suffolk University School of Law. He has also taught courses on a variety of legal subjects in Astrakhan, Russia, Sofia, Bulgaria and Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Judge Bailey served as judicial law clerk to the Honorable Herbert P. Wilkins of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1980-81. He was an associate at the Boston office of Sullivan & Worcester LLP, where he practiced in the litigation and corporate restructuring departments, until 1987. He spent the next twenty-two years as a partner at the firm of Sherin and Lodgen LLP where he was the Chairman of the Litigation Department and a member of the firm’s management committee. His practice focused on complex business litigation and business bankruptcy. He often represented clients in the real estate, medical device, pharmaceutical and high technology businesses. Judge Bailey was appointed by the First Circuit to oversee the financial restructuring of the City of Central Falls, Rhode Island, a rare Chapter 9 case. The City of Central Falls filed a contested plan of readjustment that was confirmed in a little more than a year. Judge Bailey has served on the Board of Governors of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges and was its Education Committee Chair in 2017. Beginning in October 2019 he will serve as president–elect of the NCBJ. He is past chair of the National Conference of Federal Trial Judges of the American Bar Association and currently serves as the Judicial Member at Large on the ABA Board of Governors. Judge Bailey is passionate about diversity on the bench and has worked to ensure that the federal bench reflects the populations that it serves.