Hon. Hiller B. Zobel
Retired Superior Court Judge
Massachusetts
honzobe@aol.com
Hon. Hiller B. Zobel, born Feb. 23, 1932, A.B. Harvard (1953); LL.B. Harvard (1959),
was appointed to the Massachusetts Superior Court September 11, 1979 and served until
the Massachusetts Constitution's mandatory age-70 retirement. From 1959-1967, he
litigated Admiralty matters. From 1967-1979 he was an associate professor and professor
at Boston College Law School and a part-time practitioner, including (during the period
1974-1979) serving as libel counsel to WCVB-TV, Channel 5, Boston.
He authored or co-authored Legal Papers of John Adams (with L.K. Wroth) (3 vols,
1965); The Boston Massacre (1970, reissued, 1996); Massachusetts Rule Practice (with
J.W. Smith) (4 vols. 1974-1981 and annual supplements); Doctors and the Law (with
S.N. Rous, M.D.) (1993).
In 1983-1989 and 1996-1997, Judge Zobel wrote a column for the Christian Science
Monitor on law and litigation from the trial judge's viewpoint. He has also written
numerous articles for American Heritage magazine and scholarly journals on legal and
constitutional history, subjects on which he frequently lectures to professional and lay
audiences.