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Service:
A memorial gathering will be held in Cambridge on
August 29.
Funeral home:
Boston Cremation
Obituary
Scott Carson Moriearty passed away on
June 27, 2021 at his home in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. He was 74 years old. Scott was, in
the words of those who knew him, brilliant,
unwaveringly principled and fair, kind, resolutely
unpretentious, warm, and deeply devoted to those he
loved.
Scott was born on December 18, 1946 to Frances and
Jim Moriearty in Bloomington, Illinois and raised
with his older sister, Pamela, in Lincoln, Illinois.
Though he was born with spina bifida in an era when
mere survival was uncertain, Scott flourished. An
extraordinary student, Scott was valedictorian of
his high school class and traveled to the White
House in 1965 as one of the country’s 100
Presidential Scholars.
Scott attended Harvard College, graduating Phi Beta
Kappa with a degree in American History and
Literature in 1969, and Harvard Law School, where he
was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Along the
way, he married his high school girlfriend, Sharon
Perry, and their daughter, Perry, was born in 1969.
Over the next three decades, Scott practiced labor
and employment law at the Boston law firms Foley
Hoag and Bingham Dana with a two-year hiatus as a
law professor at the University of Illinois. As
principled as he was intellectually rigorous, Scott
represented clients in numerous high-profile cases
before the U.S. Supreme Court, federal and state
courts, the National Labor Relations Board, and the
Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
He was the author of a leading employment law
treatise and a member of the prestigious American
Law Institute. Scott was also deeply committed to
service, running Foley’s public interest law
program, representing public sector employees in
employment discrimination claims pro bono, and
serving on the boards of a variety of nonprofit
legal service organizations.
He was also a gifted educator,
earning the “Outstanding Teacher” award from the
Illinois Law School graduating class of 1977, and a
popular presenter at law conferences. Scott retired
from private law practice in 2002 and spent the rest
of his career working as a special counsel,
arbitrator, and mediator.
Throughout his life, however, Scott’s
chief avocation was his family. In 1992, Scott
married Yolanda Kodrzycki, and in 1995, their
daughter Ellie was born. From fall weekends in
Center Sandwich, NH, to lunches at the Full Moon, to
the sidelines of lacrosse games and cross country
meets, Scott was a present parent and grandparent in
every sense of the word. |
He was also an avid reader, fly
fisherman, astronomer, and woodworker, remained
firmly opposed to all forms of social snobbery and
ostentation, and was committed to knowing almost
everyone who crossed his path on a personal level.
Scott is survived by his wife, Yolanda; daughters,
Perry and Ellie Moriearty; son-in-law, Kyle Hofmann;
grandchildren, Mia and Rowan Hofmann; sister, Pam
Moriearty; nephews James and Lane Grimaldi and their
families; and many dear friends and colleagues.
A memorial gathering will be held in Cambridge on
August 29.
As an expression of sympathy,
donations in Scott’s memory may be made to the
Frances Lane Moriearty Memorial Scholarship at
Lincoln College, Lincoln.
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