Former soccer standout Bill Sullivan now a star in the courtroom

A generation of Canton kids have come to know him as their soccer coach and as a proud father of three sons, but scan the newspaper archives for some of the region’s most high profile criminal cases, and chances are that William “Bill” Sullivan will have starred in at least a few of them.

Canton resident Bill Sullivan (standing) is among the region’s top criminal defense attorneys.

Coach Sullivan, it turns out, is also one of the top criminal defense attorneys in southeastern Massachusetts. A former Norfolk County and Quincy Bar Association Man of the Year, Sullivan has defended everyone from Joan Kennedy to Randall Carpeno — the Texas man charged in the 2009 murder of his aunt in Plainville — and has won acquittals on charges ranging from first degree murder and rape to drug trafficking and drunk driving.

The former all-conference midfielder at Xaverian Brothers estimates he has handled somewhere in the range of 20 to 25 murder cases over the course of his career, and that includes two of his current cases: one involving Lucas Walters, a Braintree man accused of murdering his neighbor with an ax last July following a dispute over money, and the other involving John Tassinari, an Abington man accused of shooting his wife to death in a jealous rage in April 2008. Sullivan is also currently representing a former Stoughton Police sergeant in a highly publicized case involving charges of public corruption.

While unable to discuss the specifics of his current cases for legal reasons and unwilling to delve into the details of past cases out of respect for his clients, Sullivan, in a recent interview with the Citizen, still offered plenty of insight into the high stakes world of criminal defense work — a world he described as very challenging and at times emotionally draining, yet also quite fulfilling and every bit as interesting as the fictional version often glamorized on movie and television screens.

In fact, Sullivan said he tends to stay away from primetime courtroom dramas such as Law and Order for the simple fact that after eight hours of cross-examining witnesses and listening to autopsy reports, the last thing he wants to do is endure another hour or two of it in front of the television. Besides, he said such portrayals are often inaccurate and oversimplified compared to real-life trial work.

“It’s definitely challenging,” said Sullivan, who primarily handles violent crimes and other serious criminal cases. “If you’re doing criminal work, these kinds of cases are the toughest there are. You’re in the big leagues if you’re doing these cases.”

Of course, like most successful defense attorneys, Sullivan did not jump straight to the big leagues out of law school, nor did he grow up dreaming of becoming a lawyer.

A native of Canton, Sullivan completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame, where he majored in sociology and played for the Fighting Irish soccer team. At the time, the Irish boasted the nation’s longest winning streak, although it was widely overshadowed by the Joe Montana-led football team.

Sullivan, who was a standout at Xaverian, played sparingly in college but still managed to play two years of Division 1 varsity soccer in his junior and senior years.

“You know, you get out there, and there were some very skilled players, so I had to work hard just to get out on the field,” he said. “But it was a great experience playing for Notre Dame.”

After college, Sullivan attended Boston College Law School, albeit with “no great plan,” and upon completing his degree he landed a job as an assistant district attorney in the Norfolk County DA’s office. It was through this experience that he got to know one of his mentors, the late defense attorney Richard Barry.

“Dick and I had done battle on about 10 cases,” Sullivan recalled. “They were great fights, and at the end of that he offered me a position, so I went with him.”

Today, Sullivan heads up the Quincy-based law firm of Sullivan and Sweeney along with attorney Richard J. Sweeney, a former Boston Police sergeant. The small firm, which employs just a handful of lawyers, has been awarded the Martindale-Hubbell International Law Directory’s highest rating of AV (very high to preeminent in legal ability and ethics), a distinction shared by fewer than 7 percent of all lawyers in the country, according to the firm’s website.

The two partners also boast an impressive success rate in terms of acquittals won, although Sullivan said he prefers to measure success on a case-by-case basis.

“There are all kinds of different grades of success, and each case is totally individual,” he said. “For me, it’s about how good of a job you were able to do for each individual client.”

Sullivan said the key is treating each defendant — whether they are charged with murder or drug possession — as a person. “No matter what, you have to do your best job whether you like them or not,” he said.

He also said criminal defense attorneys, as a group, maintain a “very high standard of integrity,” and at the end of the day, they, like everyone else involved, want to see justice prevail.

“I have a lot of faith in the system,” he said. “Sometimes you win a case you should have lost, and sometimes you lose a case you should have won, but the vast majority of the time the criminal justice system works.”

As for those who are considering a career in the field, Sullivan offered the following advice: “Get out there and get involved in the court system in some way, and talk to people in the field,” for it is an area of the law that is “difficult to get just from books.”

He stressed that the job is not for everybody, but also one in which the right person can make a real difference. And there is a reason, he said, why many lawyers are former athletes — because “trial work is a lot like athletics.”

“They both involve lots of preparation,” he explained. “They both take a certain amount of aggressiveness; there are certain rules you have to follow; there is a referee, or judge; and at the end of it there’s a winner and a loser.”

It’s a fitting comparison, especially for a man who counts his playing and coaching days as among the greatest of his life. And while those days are now behind him, Sullivan at least gets to relive the experience through his youngest son, Brennan, who will start in goal this coming season for his father’s alma mater, Xaverian.

In the meantime, Sullivan has a day job that rivals anything that can be seen on primetime TV.

“It really is a great job,” he said. “Each day’s an interesting day. You always want to get better, to do more, but right now the type of practice I have I really enjoy.”

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Posted by Jay Turner on Aug 19 2010. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.