Mark Lawton and his son Patrick Lawton run a general law practice located at 157 Belmont Street in Brockton, Massachusetts.
BIOGRAPHY OF ATTORNEY MARK EDWARD LAWTON
Mark Edward Lawton, is the oldest of five sons to the late Judge James R. Lawton and Jeanne G. (Cashman) Lawton. He attended Brockton Public Schools, Coyle High School and Stonehill College where he majored in Philosophy. Lawton attended the New England School of Law/Boston, graduating in 1974. While in law school, he participated in the National Honors Moot Court competition.
Upon graduating from law school, Lawton ran for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, the same seat his father held before him. At age twenty-five, Lawton was one of the youngest candidates ever to win a seat to the Massachusetts House. Like his father, he won five successive elections to the House from his native Brockton. While in the House, Lawton served on both the Rules and Judiciary Committees. In 1979, Governor Edward J. King named Lawton as the Chairman of the Massachusetts Delegation to the White House Conference on Families. In 1978, the Massachusetts Bar Association named Lawton their ‘Legislator of the Year.’
From 1975 to 1983, Lawton was engaged in the general practice of law with two of his four younger brothers, Thomas Lawton and Richard Lawton, in their offices located in Brockton, Massachusetts.
In January of 1983, Lawton took the oath of office from Governor Edward J. King as an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Trial Court. He’s also served intermittently in the Massachusetts Housing, District and Boston Municipal Courts. Upon his appointment to the bench, Judge Lawton became, along with his father, the late Judge James R. Lawton, the only father-son combo to ever serve simultaneously in the Massachusetts Trial Court. At age thirty-three, Lawton was the youngest judge ever appointed to serve in the Massachusetts Trial Court.
In July of 2010, after serving in the Massachusetts Trial Court for over 27 years, Lawton left the bench to resume the private practice of law. He also formed a lobbying firm with his wife of 37 years, called The Lawton Group.
In 1977, Lawton founded the Brockton Regional Economic Development Council. In 1990, he received the Judicial Award from ‘Parents of Murdered Children.’ In 1991, Lawton founded the Brockton Boys and Girls Club. Since then, the club has serviced thousands of underprivileged children. In 1993, the Massachusetts Bar Association gave Lawton their annual ‘Public Service Award.’
Between 1984 and 1986, Lawton taught courses at Massasoit Community College in Brockton, Massachusetts. Those courses included: Evidence, Constitutional Law, Family Law and State and Local Government. Between 1985 and the present, he has served on the adjunct faculty staff at the New England School of Law/Boston, where he has taught courses in Family Law and Juvenile Law.
Judge Lawton is married to former Plymouth County Commissioner Patricia (O’Leary) Lawton. They have three children: Patrick O’Leary Lawton, a law school graduate; Timothy Clifford Lawton, a 2003 West Point graduate, who served four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Army’s First Ranger Battalion and; and, Molly Burke Lawton, who attended the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and the Boston University School of Business and Management and who now lives and works in New York City.
In 2010, Judge Lawton retired from the bench and is now practicing privately with his oldest son Patrick at their law office located at 157 Belmont Street in Brockton, Massachusetts.
