McMenemy Receives State Bar Association Community Award
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Massachusetts Bar Association has named Joan M. McMenemy, second assistant district attorney for Berkshire County, the recipient of its 2008 Community Service Award.MBA President Edward W. McIntyre presented the award to McMenemy on Jan. 31, 2009, at the Berkshire Bar Association's Winter Ball at Cranwell Resort and Golf Club in Lenox. She is the first prosecutor to receive this honor since the Bar Association began presenting the award in 1984.
This award is given annually to a member of each county bar association whose contributions to the community, outside of their professional obligations and duties, improve the county's quality of life. Among McMenemy's accomplishments, and the basis for her nomination, was her work with the Juvenile Firesetters Prevention Program, the Flash Point Anti-Hate Crime Program, and the Pittsfield Coalition for Cultural Diversity.
She also voluntarily provides training to local agencies and police departments on the investigation of child abuse, sexual assault and arson. In 2000, the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly named McMenemy one of the state's up-and-coming lawyers and she has continued to distinguish herself in a number of capacities in the Berkshire district attorney's office, including as chief of the Child Abuse and Sexual Assault Unit.
McMenemy, a native of Worcester and a graduate of Vassar College and Suffolk University Law School, joined the Berkshire district attorney's office in 1994. She has prosecuted cases in each of the criminal courts in the county. In 2005, District Attorney David F. Capeless named McMenemy his second assistant district attorney.
