Michael E. Malamut is an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Trial Court in the Housing Court Department. As a lawyer, he developed an extensive consulting practice in nonprofit governance. His legal work concentrated in affordable housing and nonprofit law. He served as counsel to the Boston Housing Authority and the Massachusetts Department of Housing & Community Development for 16 years. From 1998 through 2008 he served as an in-house counsel in the nonprofit sector at the New England Legal Foundation, eventually becoming Deputy General Counsel. He has been active in nonprofit issues in the American Bar Association, serving as Chair of the Business Law Section’s Nonprofit Organizations Committee (2011–2014), which oversees the development and updating of the Model Nonprofit Corporation Act, and as Liaison to the ABA Commission on Homelessness and Poverty (2009–present). Until appointment to the bench, he co-chaired the Boston Bar Association Working Group on Revision of the Massachusetts Nonprofit Corporation Act and now serves as an advisor to the Working Group.
Judge Malamut is one of the few attorneys nationwide who has also obtained the highest credentials as a professional parliamentarian and a governance trainer. He is currently serving as Chair of the Opinions Committee of the American Institute of Parliamentarians (member since 2000, Chair since 2008) and recently completed a term as Parliamentary Research Editor/Chair of the Questions & Answers Committee for the National Association of Parliamentarians (2017–19) and served for several terms as Chair the National Parliamentarian Review Committee and NAP Legal Liaison. He is past President of the American College of Parliamentary Lawyers (2009–2012). He was a member of the authorship team for the American Institute of Parliamentarians Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure (2012); AIP’s Fundamentals of Parliamentary Law and Procedure (4th ed. 2014); and Ray E. Keesey’s Modern Parliamentary Procedure (American Psychological Association 2d ed. 2018). He is credentialed as a Professional Registered Parliamentarian by National Association of Parliamentarians, a Certified Professional Parliamentarian and Teacher by AIP, and a Certified Governance Trainer by BoardSource (previously the National Center for Nonprofit Boards). He has taught and written widely on nonprofit governance and meeting procedures. AIP granted him the President’s Award for Parliamentary Writing twice (2000 and 2020) and named him Robert W. English Lecturer (2018).
Judge Malamut is a graduate of Princeton University, where he received a Woodrow Wilson Award for Senior Thesis Research, and Harvard Law School, where he was Senior Editor of the Harvard International Law Journal. For many years, he taught Appellate Advocacy as an Adjunct Professor at Suffolk University Law School.
In addition, prior to appointment to the bench, he served as an elected Town Meeting member and as elected Commissioner of Trust Funds in his hometown of Dedham, Massachusetts (member from 2006–2014; Commission Chair, 2014–2019). He resides in Dedham with his wife, physician Catherine Milch Malamut, and two college-age children.