Sandulli Grace partner Amy Laura Davidson is retiring from the firm as of December 31, 2025 after a long, distinguished career working on behalf of labor unions and their members. After graduating from the University of Connecticut and earning her J.D. at Northeastern University School of Law, Amy began her legal career as a hearing officer at the Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission, hearing and deciding cases under G.L. c. 150E and defending the Commission’s decisions in the Massachusetts Appeals Court. She was then recruited by the in-house counsel’s office at the National Association of Government Employees/International Brotherhood of Police Officers, where she remained for two years before joining Sandulli Grace in 1992, quickly becoming a partner in the firm in 1993. Throughout her long career at Sandulli Grace representing labor unions and employees in a wide variety of legal matters, Amy became a role model in her commitment to providing the highest quality legal services, as well as her dedication to the labor movement as a whole and the labor bar in particular.

In addition to handling grievances and grievance arbitrations, unfair labor practices and representation proceedings, and collective bargaining negotiations, Amy has maintained a strong interest in shaping public-sector labor law since her early employment with the Labor Relations Commission. She played a pivotal role in the innovative litigation that secured the right of Massachusetts municipal employees to negotiate over health insurance benefits. In 1998, Amy worked with the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association to successfully lobby for the passage of St.1998, c. 9, which amended G.L. c. 150E to afford police officers in cities the same rights to negotiate their working conditions and enforce their collective bargaining agreements as other public employees in the Commonwealth. Amy was co-chair of the Boston Bar Association’s Annual Workshop for Public-Sector Labor Relations Specialists for over twenty years, creating and hosting presentations on public-sector bargaining issues. In 2006, she served on a labor-management committee formed for the purpose of analyzing ongoing difficulties at the Labor Relations Commission and making recommendations to the Secretary of Labor. After the reorganization of the Commonwealth’s labor agencies in 2007, Governor Deval Patrick appointed Amy to the Advisory Council to the Department of Labor Relations; she served as chair of that council from 2010 to 2014.

Amy also has a longstanding interest in educating workers and union activists about collective bargaining. For many years, she has created and led seminars and workshops at the MCOP Annual Police Seminar, the PFFM’s Biennial Convention and the MTA’s Annual Summer Leadership Conference.

In 2020, Amy received the prestigious labor attorney award from the Labor Guild of the Archdiocese of Boston, a recognition of her long record of achievement and dedication to unions and their members. In his nominating letter to the Labor Guild, Amy’s former colleague Ira Fader, retired chief counsel of the Mass. Teachers’ Association, wrote:“[Amy Davidson] wants the law to work fairly and effectively, she wants the law itself to improve lives. She also wants the law to be understood. … Amy was and is a tireless advocate for her union clients, including the MTA, in whatever area of law arose. No less important than her desire to build union institutional strength is her genuine compassion for the individual worker (or workers) whose own rights and interests are at stake. Amy is genuinely motivated by her concern for the individual person: she truly wants to make their work life better, safer, more secure, or properly compensated.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. In addition to her high degree of professional skills and commitment to furthering the interests of her clients, Amy enriched the lives of her colleagues with her humor, energy, and friendship. As she moves to the next phase of her life to spend more time with her husband Gene and her three papillons, we will miss her in so many ways.