Governor Nominates Two to District Court

11:41AM / Saturday, May 04, 2024Print Story | Email Story

BOSTON — Governor Maura T. Healey nominated Sarah Kennedy and Edward Krippendorf to the District Court.

The nominees will now continue forward to the Governor's Council for confirmation.

"Sarah and Edward are two distinguished attorneys who will make excellent additions to the District Court," said Governor Healey. "They have dedicated their careers to the law and I look forward to working with the Governor's Council to confirm their nominations."

The District Court Department hears a wide range of criminal, civil, housing, juvenile, mental health, and other types of cases. District Court criminal jurisdiction extends to all felonies punishable by a sentence up to five years, and many other specific felonies with greater potential penalties, all misdemeanors, and all violations of city and town ordinances and by-laws. In civil matters, the District Court hears cases in which the damages are not likely to be more than $50,000 and small claims cases up to $7,000. The District Court is located in 62 courts across the state.

About Sarah Kennedy

Sarah Kennedy currently serves as an Assistant Clerk Magistrate in the Dorchester Division of the Boston Municipal Court, a position she has held since 2021. Attorney Kennedy is responsible for conducting hearings for criminal complaints, assisting judges with courtroom sessions, and helping staff, litigants and members of the public with navigating the court system. Prior to that, she served as both a prosecutor for the Middlesex District Attorney's Office and a defense attorney for the Committee for Public Counsel Services. She has a bachelor's from Boston College and a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School and she lives in Waltham with her wife and children.

About Edward (Ed) Krippendorf, Jr.

Ed Krippendorf is an accomplished and well-respected trial attorney with broad civil and criminal experience. Attorney Krippendorf began his career as a criminal investigator in the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office before attending New England School of Law. After graduating cum laude, Attorney Krippendorf worked as an Assistant District Attorney in Suffolk County for eight years, prosecuting cases in District, Boston Municipal, and Superior Courts. For the last three years in the DA's Office, he tried complicated Superior Court cases while assigned to the Senior Trial and Homicide Units. Attorney Krippendorf now serves as a partner at Eisenstadt Krippendorf Group in Westwood, MA representing private and indigent criminal defendants as well as handling a broad array of civil and administrative matters in a variety of courts. He also volunteers as a Court Conciliator for the Norfolk County Probate and Family Court. He has a B.S. from Salem State College and a J.D. from New England School of Law. He lives in Braintree with his wife and children.

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Berkshire Jazz: New Leadership Continues Founder's Passion

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
07:33AM / Saturday, February 28, 2026

Chuck Walker, left, found Berkshire Jazz a year after moving to the Berkshires and shared his enthusiasm for the musical form with Ed Bride, not realizing he was the founder. It eventually led to Walker become the organization's president.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Berkshire County is jazz, said Chuck Walker, the newly appointed president of the nonprofit Berkshire Jazz.

Jazz embodies freedom way of thinking, improvisation, and a distant respect for the rules, Berkshire Jazz founder Ed Bride said.

It is an emotional refuge from today's atmosphere. The Berkshires, too, is like that, a place to escape and clear your head, which is why so many artists over the years have visited the area, the duo said.

"You need a place to escape from that in order to, as we all used to say back in the '60s, to get your head right. The Berkshires are a place where you can get your head right," Walker said.

"The way that you just described jazz as improvisational … as being out of lockstep with whatever the prevailing society is. That's what makes jazz jazz. That, too, is what makes the Berkshires the Berkshires."

For the last 20 years, Bride has been rejuvenating jazz in the Berkshires, a genre that was once alive thanks to venues such as Music Inn and The Lenox School of Jazz, sometimes called the Music Barn, active from 1950 until the late '70s.

Bride said when he started the Pittsfield City Jazz Festival in 2005, which became the Berkshire Jazz nonprofit in 2009, you could go months without hearing jazz, with only one place in the county that would regularly play it: Castle Street Café in Great Barrington, which closed in 2016.

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