Eva Jellison (she, her, hers) is a criminal defense attorney and partner at Wood & Nathanson, LLP. She represents adults and juveniles in post-conviction and post-adjudication matters, students in university/ college Title IX and disciplinary matters, and athletes in disciplinary matters brought by amateur athletics governing bodies. She has particular experience in criminal and juvenile appeals, motions for new trial, and motions for post-conviction forensic testing.
In particular, Attorney Jellison has fought hard and successfully to keep children from being harmed by the juvenile justice system. Most recently, In Manolo M., 486 Mass. 678 (2021), she convinced the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) to interpret G.L. c. 119, § 52 to require the pre-arraignment dismissal of all minor misdemeanors arising out of a child’s first episode of criminal conduct, resulting in the dismissal of three charges against her client and ensuring that Commonwealth cannot simply charge a child with multiple offenses to avoid criminal justice reform. In Ashe A. v. Commonwealth, 483 Mass. 1005 (2019), she convinced the SJC to hold that the Legislature's decriminalization of disturbing a grade or high school assembly applied retroactively to cases pending where the legislation went into effect, which resulted in her client’s case being dismissed. And in Lazlo. L. v. Commonwealth, 482 Mass. 325 (2019), she convinced the SJC to dismiss the cases of all children ages 7-11 which were pending when the 2018 Criminal Justice Reform Act went into effect. In Commonwealth v. Oswaldo O., 94 Mass. App. Ct. 550 (2018), she convinced the Appeals Court to hear an appeal from a case that had been dismissed post-adjudication due to the collateral immigration consequences faced by her client. This ruling opened the door to protect vulnerable immigrant children from deportation.
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Attorney Jellison has also been called upon by the Committee for Public Counsel Services to author amicus briefs in important cases. In Commonwealth v. Rivera, 482 Mass. 145 (2019), she helped to convince the SJC that simply lying to the police is insufficient to support a conviction of accessory after the fact to murder. She argued for a reasonable juvenile standard in place of a reasonable person standard to recognize the different neuropsychological capabilities of juveniles and adults in briefs filed in Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter, 474 Mass. 624 (2016) and Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter, 481 Mass. 352 (2019). She also argued for a constitutional right to access medical marijuana on behalf of a probationer in Commonwealth v. Vargas, 475 Mass. 86 (2016).
In addition, Attorney Jellison understands that every criminal matter is critically important to her clients and their family members and friends, and she is willing to pursue all manners of relief. Attorney Jellison has been successful in addressing several sentencing matters such as reducing a client’s disproportionate habitual offender sentence by ten years, moving up a client’s parole eligibility date by 4 years, vacating a client’s unconstitutional sentence and securing his release from incarceration 8 years earlier than he expected, and removing a client’s probation fees for the remainder of her probationary sentence.
Attorney Jellison graduated from Northeastern University School of Law in 2013 and served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Dana Fabe of the Supreme Court of the State of Alaska before joining Wood & Nathanson in 2014. Attorney Jellison is a member of the Committee for Public Counsel Services panels for criminal appeals and juvenile murder appeals. Attorney Jellison is a board member of the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association, is its liaison to the Superior Court, and was the co-chair of its Committee for Transgender Inclusion from 2014-2020. She is also a member of the SJC Standing Committee on Lawyer Wellbeing's Subcommittee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Small and Medium Size Firms.
Attorney Jellison was named a Lawyers Weekly Up & Coming Lawyer for 2020 and a Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2020 and 2021.