2019 Lawyers of the Year: Diane C. Tillotson and M. Patrick Moore Jr., Hemenway & Barnes.

Byline: Eric T. Berkman

In May 2016, Belmont's McLean Hospital purchased 5.5 acres in Lincoln to operate "3East," a residential program for teenaged boys diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and other forms of "emotional dysregulation."

Before McLean bought the land, located in a residential zoning district, Lincoln's building commissioner confirmed that 3East qualified as an educational program exempt from zoning restrictions under the Dover Amendment. The Planning Board approved the site plan.

But a Land Court judge ruled last year in McLean Hospital Corporation v. Town of Lincoln, et al. that the program which utilizes group sessions, homework and modeling strategies to help participants develop social, emotional and life skills while coping with their condition was primarily "therapeutic" and not educational because it centered on life skills that "look inward" rather than those "focused outward."

That threatened to set a "very dangerous precedent" that could imperil many mental health social services programs across the commonwealth, says McLean's attorney, Diane C. Tillotson.

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"The term 'educational' is purposefully broad."

M. Patrick Moore Jr.

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In the fall, however, Tillotson and colleague M. Patrick Moore Jr. convinced the Supreme Judicial Court to reject the Land Court's strict distinction between therapeutic and academic education. The two Boston attorneys persuaded the SJC that programs like 3East fall within what the court described as the "broad and comprehensive" meaning of educational purposes under Dover.

Tillotson calls it a much-needed clarification to the law.

"Particularly because, in my view as a practitioner, Land Court decisions carry at least as much weight if not a little more weight in land use matters than even a Superior Court decision," she says.

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Q. What was the most challenging aspect of the case?

TILLOTSON: The nomenclature that surrounded part of the case. Trying to distinguish in our own minds between "treatment" and "education" and constantly walking that line back and forth was the biggest challenge. But the SJC in its final analysis said that treatment in this case is educational and no bright line separates the two.

Q. What was the key to the result you achieved?

MOORE: This is the rare case where we won [at the SJC] in large part on the factual findings of the Land Court. Even though its legal analysis didn't come out the way we were hoping, we got the factual findings we...