How do judges of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court / Joined 2011 / Active

Barbara A. Lenk

Justice, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Barbara A. Lenk is a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, serving since 2011. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1950 · age 76
Tenure: Since 2011 · 15 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2011	Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court	–	–

Education

Harvard University

Judicial Record

In our data, Lenk authored 157 published opinions for the court (2011–2019), plus 7 dissents and 9 concurrences. Most cited: Bulwer v. Mount Auburn Hospital (190 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 170 of these were attributed to Lenk by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2016	Bulwer v. Mount Auburn Hospital†	473 Mass. 672	190
2013	Diatchenko v. District Attorney for the Suffolk District· Concurrence†	466 Mass. 655	159
2017	Balles v. Babcock Power Inc.†	476 Mass. 565	103
2014	Doe, Sex Offender Registry Board No. 68549 v. Sex Offender Registry Board†	470 Mass. 102	95
2013	Metropolitan Life Insurance v. Cotter†	464 Mass. 623	91
2018	Commonwealth v. Tremblay†	107 N.E.3d 1121	82
2015	Commonwealth v. Kelly· Concurrence†	470 Mass. 682	76
2016	Verdrager v. Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.†	474 Mass. 382	71
2017	Blanchard v. Steward Carney Hospital, Inc.†	477 Mass. 141	64
2015	Doe, SORB No. 380316 v. Sex Offender Registry Board†	473 Mass. 297	64
2014	Auto Flat Car Crushers, Inc. v. Hanover Insurance Co.†	469 Mass. 813	63
2013	Reading Co-Operative Bank v. Suffolk Construction Co.†	464 Mass. 543	63
2018	A.L. Prime Energy Consultant, Inc. v. Mass. Bay Transportation Authority†	95 N.E.3d 547	59
2013	DeWolfe v. Hingham Centre, Ltd.†	464 Mass. 795	59
2012	Commonwealth v. Clarke†	461 Mass. 336	59

Showing the 15 most-cited of 173 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court is Barbara A. Lenk on?: Barbara A. Lenk is a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

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15 years on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).