Hon. John T. Broderick, Jr.

Hon. John T. Broderick, Jr. became the Senior Director of External Affairs at Dartmouth-Hitchcock in 2017. He was a member of the New Hampshire Supreme Court from 1995 to 2010. During his last seven years there he served as Chief Justice. Much of his focus as Chief Justice was on court reform in an effort to make the justice system in our state more accessible, affordable and understandable for more of our citizens.

He was the first Chief Justice in New Hampshire’s history to appoint a Citizens Commission on the State Courts so that citizens could examine how the courts functioned and how they could be improved to better serve the needs of all who needed them. He created the first-ever business court, and expanded family court, mental health court and drug court dockets across the state.

After stepping down as Chief Justice, he became Dean of the Law School at UNH. Under his leadership, the law school advanced an unprecedented 49 slots in the US News and World Report rankings into a tie with the law schools at Northeastern and Villanova. He was also the founder of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership and Public Policy at the law school.

Before entering public service, Justice Broderick was a civil trial lawyer in private practice for over twenty years and formerly served as president of both the NH Bar Association and the NH Trial Lawyers Association. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He has received numerous professional awards and several honorary degrees.

In 2016 Justice Broderick agreed to co-chair the first statewide launch in New Hampshire of a national mental health awareness campaign called Change Direction New Hampshire. For the past 45 months, he has spoken countless times to various audiences about the five most common signs of mental illness in an effort to improve understanding and awareness of mental illness to eliminate its mythology, encourage discussion and treatment and begin to change the unfair and shameful culture that surrounds it. More recently, he has also been discussing the R.E.A.C.T. campaign designed by Dartmouth-Hitchcock and embraced by the State Department of Education in New Hampshire to begin a discussion on how all of us need to engage those people who are suffering from mental illness.

Justice Broderick was born in Norwood, MA and is an honors graduate of Holy Cross College and the University of Virginia Law School.