LAWYER DIRECTORY

ROY A. HAMMER

E-MAIL: rhammer@hembar.com

ROY A. HAMMER joined Hemenway & Barnes in 1960.  He became a partner in 1966 and retired at the end of 2006. Mr. Hammer is now Of Counsel to the firm.  Although Mr. Hammer originally concentrated his law practice in the corporate area, since 1976 he practiced primarily in the fields of estate planning and the administration of trusts and estates.  Mr. Hammer devoted a substantial portion of his professional time to fiduciary activities, both within our firm and as a co-trustee with other financial institutions.  He is a member of the American Law Institute, the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and the Boston Estate Planning Council.  Mr. Hammer is a former director of Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

In addition to his law and trust practice, Mr. Hammer has been deeply involved in pro bono legal activities throughout his career and has served in a wide variety of bar association and other professional offices at the local, state, regional and national levels.  Mr. Hammer was president of the Massachusetts Bar Association from 1978 to 1979.  He has been a director of the New England Bar Association and a trustee of Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education - New England Law Institute.  On a national level, Mr. Hammer served on the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association and was a member of the ABA's House of Delegates from 1978 to 2006.  Mr. Hammer serves on the joint Board of the American Law Institute/ American Bar Association Committee on Continuing Professional Education, has served as a member of the Executive Council of the National Conference of Bar Presidents and is a past trustee of the National Conference of Bar Foundations.  He served on the council of the ABA Fund for Justice and Education and is a past director of the American Judicature Society.

Mr. Hammer has been active in various charitable foundations, including service as a trustee of Jane’s Trust and the Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust, a director of the Cox Foundation, president of the Massachusetts Bar Foundation, Massachusetts state chairman of the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, a founder and trustee of the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union Foundation, and a number of other charitable trusts.  A resident of Boston, Mr. Hammer was formerly special counsel to the City of Cambridge and legal consultant to the Cambridge Model Cities Program.  He is a trustee of the Longy School of Music, a governor of the Handel & Haydn Society, a member of the Radiation Oncology Visiting Committee of Massachusetts General Hospital, a member of the Advisory Board of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, a member of the Visiting Committee of the Conservation and Collections Management Department of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, a founding member of the Board of Overseers of the Supreme Judicial Court Historical Society, and a resident member of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

He graduated from Yale University in 1956 and earned an MA from Columbia University in 1957.  He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1960 and joined the firm following active duty in the field artillery.