Atty. Roland L. Milliard, office situated in Dracut MA
$64,000 Question: Why did the Dracut (MA) Water Supply District almost double its posted ‘Legal’ expenses, from $31,116 in 2016 to $54,941 in 2017, without being involved in any apparent pending lawsuit? Secondly, why did the DWSD nearly triple the annual stipend of its most recently hired attorney Roland “Conflict of Interest” Milliard, from $8,580 in 2016 to $24,156 in 2017?
Or maybe the better question here is, why the heck would the DWSD hire a shyster lawyer like Milliard in the first place? Back in ’98, Milliard represented a client, Bill Morin, who was suing the Dracut Water District for Defamation of Character, and Violating his First Amendment Rights. The following year, Morin was elected Water Commissioner and then decided to drop his lawsuit. Morin still holds his elected post with the DWSD, and Milliard has now joined that bureaucracy as a part-time lawyer since 2016 probably via one of the Water District’s famous, “Nationwide Searches“.
The DWSD is a small obscure government entity, which is separate from the Town of Dracut. It basically provides the water supply needs for most of Dracut and part of neighboring Tyngsboro MA. The Dracut Water District operation is so obscure, it’s rarely covered by the local media and it’s been about 15 years since there’s been a contested race for a Commissioner’s or Clerk’s seat even though they offer a more lucrative annual stipend than a seat on either the Dracut Board of Selectmen, or the Dracut School Committee.
Needless to say, it’s fairly simple for a jerk like Milliard to “fly under the proverbial radar of public scrutiny” and pocket about $25K per year at the DWSD for “doing something“. In 2017, there was also another attorney on the DWSD’s payroll named, Arthur C. Sullivan Jr., who grossed a little more than $26K, plus $5K that was paid to an entity called, KP Law, P.C.
One important duty for the DWSD lawyer(s) is initiating Property Tax Liens on its delinquent rate payers, YET, money paid to the Middlesex County Registry of Deeds was nearly cut in half from two years ago ($6,675 in 2016, to $4,875 in 2017). So again, how does DWSD “justify” almost doubling its Legal expenses since 2016?
Besides Morin, Robert Corey and William “Zee” Zielinski all serve as the DWSD Commissioners and were obviously there two years ago when Milliard was hired as a DWSD attorney. My question to all three gentlemen: Dudes…Seriously??? Did you ever hear of a thing called, Google searches? How about, the Lowell Sun? What about Milliard’s pathetic inability to save his own fat butt from a personal drunk driving fiasco back in ’99?
Was the hiring of Milliard at the DWSD, considered a “political favor” to one of your campaign supporters, or maybe a “questionable” friend? Can you say, “Quid Pro Quo”? I mean, I just assumed you three guys had a lot more brains (or is, “integrity” the more appropriate word here?) than making a hiring like that.
So in other words, your Dracut constituents are supposed to believe here that out of the few hundred lawyers currently working in the Greater Lowell area, Roland L. Milliard was the absolute BEST and BRIGHTEST you could come up with to serve as a Water District attorney? What a bunch of, bullCRAP! Granted, I’m quite familiar with the cliche, “You’re better off with the Devil you know rather than the Devil you don’t know“, HOWEVER, when the “Devil you know” is nothing but a Train Wreck waiting to happen, I’d say you’re much better off with a “Devil you Don’t know“, such as a Law student who just passed the Massachusetts Bar Exam last week. Are there any questions as to why Dracut MA is often referred to as, Somerville with Trees?
Can you imagine that Atty. Milliard was actually elected, just fairly recently, President of the Greater Lowell Bar Association? What a tremendous ethical “role model” and “standard bearer” for all lawyers in the local area to follow. For the life of me, I can’t understand why all the lawyers from the Greater Lowell area didn’t continue to reelect Milliard as President of the Bar Association over and over and over again just like the Russian people do with Vladimir Putin. Someday, hopefully, some lawyer with a good conscience will come forward and spill the beans on why Milliard was only a “one termer” in that post.
Also, did I mention on the popular Lawyer critique internet forum, AVVO, Milliard refers to himself as a, “Traffic and Speeding Ticket Lawyer”, I assume, his “specialty”. First of all, when I was a little more amicable with Milliard years ago, I personally sought and applied his advice when challenging a Speeding Ticket — I wound up failing miserably and losing my case. This begs the question from Atty. Milliard — what exactly is the success rate of his clients who have actually contested their speeding tickets at a Court hearing? I would assume it’s about the same rate — if not worse — as most of his regular Court cases.
Secondly, why the heck would the Dracut Water Supply District seek after and retain a self-proclaimed, “Traffic and Speeding Ticket Lawyer” to serve as one of its regular attorneys? Aside from completely wasting and abusing Dracut taxpayer money, it makes no sense whatsoever.
Textbook Definition of an, ‘Ambulance Chaser’
According to a website called, howlmag.com, Milliard became associated with a gay rights activist and social worker from Lowell MA named Troix Bettencourt via a gay-themed talk show on a now-defunct Boston radio station:
[…But Troix ended up in an unlikely support system. He met politicians and lawyers, influential men and women who were gay.
Troix went public with his story, appearing on national TV talk shows, talking to the press in print and on the radio.
In 1993, he was a key speaker at the historical march for gay and lesbian rights in Washington D.C., where at age 18, he championed the issues in front of an estimated one million people.
One night, when Troix was telling his story on WFNX radio’s One in Ten program, a Dracut lawyer named Roland Milliard was listening and called in. “He started talking about state law and how what was happening to me, to people I knew, was illegal,” Troix said.
Roland ended up representing Troix in a lawsuit against the state of Massachusetts. They won.
On Dec. 10, 1993, Massachusetts made history when the Gay and Lesbian Student Rights Law was signed by Gov. William Weld. Massachusetts became the only state in the country to have full support for LGBT students through its governor…]
Although the origins of the attorney-client relationship between Milliard and Bettencourt were a wee bit unorthodox here to say the least, it apparently paid big dividends for both parties. I emphasis the word, “apparently” here because it’s not exactly clear from the aforementioned excerpt what, “they won” from the state of Massachusetts. Was it $100 million, or more like just $1? Who knows? If I were writing this piece for howlmag.com and I were trying to make Bettencourt and Milliard “look good” to my readership, I would’ve definitely mentioned the dollar amount if it were an exorbitant court award. But since the specifics of the actual court award wasn’t that clear in this article, I tend to think it was a wee bit on the low side.
The Stigma associated with Court-appointed Clients & Lawyers
Here’s an excerpt that was published in the Lowell Sun on Nov. 2012 quoting Milliard about a proposal by his former Landlord/Secretary to have a Child Daycare organization move into a neighboring unit of the same condominium building, and then I’d like to bring up a couple of points:
{…“From having worked with me, (Effie Keriakos) knows I have clients who are not permitted to be around children or a day care,” said Milliard. “Her claim that it’s personal is a smoke screen for her to get what she wants, which is a new tenant to fill an empty space, while leveraging a position where she could force me to leave by placing me in the same building with a day care.”
Milliard read from a list of sex offenses eight of his clients have been charged with in court cases since 2010, including child rape, possession of child pornography, and sexual assault on children under 12 and under 14…}
So is it a little unusual for a lawyer, situated in Dracut Mass., to have at least 8 (eight) convicted child molesters as clients all within a two year span? It’s not like there’s a convicted child molester (sex offender) lurking behind every telephone pole in Dracut — a suburban community about 35 miles north of Boston. It’s not as if Dracut is the modern day version of Sodom and Gomorrah. And again, let me reiterate, it’s certainly NOT because of Milliard’s “reputation” for getting court verdicts in his client’s favor (just the opposite is true). I tend to believe that these eight convicted child molesters got stuck with Milliard as, “court appointed clients“. Many of Milliard’s clients, whose situations are published in the Lowell Sun or posted on YouTube, appear to be via the court-appointed system.
Now don’t get me wrong, I believe people facing criminal charges and can’t afford a lawyer are entitled to have professional legal representation at taxpayer’s expense. From a lawyer’s perspective, court-appointed clients are usually viewed as, a nightmare waiting to happen because the evidence by the Police and the District Attorney is, more often than not, stacked against them. And if it happens to be a high-profile case, the results will most likely be published in the Media and negative verdicts just go to further hurt the lawyer’s reputation.
My question here is, is Roland Milliard availing much of his law practice to serving as a court-appointed attorney out of the goodness of his heart, or because that’s really the ONLY way he can keep himself financially afloat? Personally, with Milliard, I think the latter is a heck of a lot more accurate than the former.
Elected officials (maybe subcontractors?) exploiting DWSD employees’ health insurance
Furthermore, since Milliard has annually grossed more than $5K from the Dracut Water District since 2016, is this guy enrolled on the DWSD employees’ health insurance coverage per Massachusetts General Law 32b (which, in essence, would give him about another $20,000 annually worth of that ever valuable, and much sought after, perk)? Even though Milliard is only considered a, “subcontractor” on the DWSD financial records, stranger things have taken place in Dracut politics. If Milliard is not getting health insurance coverage thru the DWSD employees’ plan, could he be enrolled through the State of Massachusetts (also covered by M.G.L. 32b) via serving as a Court-appointed attorney for at least $5K worth of cases per year? Knowing Roland Milliard the way I do, I think these questions are DEFINITELY worth asking.
Heck, I recently heard from a fairly reliable source that both Morin and Zielinski are currently enrolled on the DWSD employees’ health insurance coverage, yet the elected Water Commissioner’s annual stipend is about a couple grand less than the $5K minimum requirement set forth under M.G.L. 32b — so how did they possibly finagle that arrangement??? Apparently, the Dracut Water Supply District is considered so “unique” that it can impose it’s own rules and standards totally separate from the State of Massachusetts. Un-BLEEPIN-believable!
Getting back to court-appointed attorneys, I can fully understand a law student who recently passed the Bar Exam pursuing court-appointed clients to try to make a name for themselves, HOWEVER, Milliard is now 60-something and has been practicing Law for almost 30 years. See, the lawyer whom I affectionately refer to as, ‘Atty. Conflict of Interest‘, doesn’t even justifiably qualify as a “has-been“, he’s more like a “never-was“.
Maybe Dracut Water Commissioners Morin, Corey, or Zielinski could amply explain to us all what’s so great about Roland Milliard, as well as why they almost doubled DWSD Legal expenses (and nearly tripled Milliard’s annual stipend) from one year ago. For that matter, perhaps the DWSD Commissioners could elaborate a little bit on what exactly Milliard’s responsible for in the Water District, and what he’s accomplished since his hiring in 2016. I’d absolutely love to hear (or read) their comments regarding this situation.
One Bad Decision Away From Homelessness 