A Bell Hop With A Law Degree

By Kimberly Allen

Wearing a T-shirt he got at his niece’s summer camp, wrinkled plaid shorts and a smile, Ron Griffin does not look like a man with a law degree.
This 59-year-old man, of Harwich, Mass., works as a bell man at a hotel and as a social worker at a group home.
He has a law degree, but does not practice law. He said he is happy with the jobs he has.
“I get to meet people from all over the world, staff and guests,” he said about his bell man and concierge job at the Mariot Hotel in Boston. “It’s an escape. and a release for me.”
Initially, Griffin graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 1975 at age 26 with a degree in sociology. He was hoping to get into social work and teaching. He also had a keen interest in law.
He graduated later than expected because he wanted to do something different, he said.
“My sophomore year, after 16 straight years of school, I left college and tried to enlist in the Navy, but high blood pressure prevented me from being able to join the service,” he said.
Instead of being in the Navy, he traveled around New York, New Jersey, and New England and worked in a factory making ski racks.
During all of his travels, he said the he was still interested in law.
“I always thought having a law degree would be a useful tool to have...to make some social change,” he said.
A friend of Griffin since their college days, Bob D’Addario, said he really admires “The Griff”, the nickname D’Addario and other friends gave him.
“Sometimes I forget that he has a law degree because he never boasts about it,” D’Addario said. “At the end of the day, he’s just one of the guys.”
Going to law school right out of college was never his plan because he wanted to get married and have children first. For more than 10 years, law was on the back burner.
He spent his time working at the Massachusetts Office for Children, then at the Department of Social Services.
Griffin did get married, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1986. He then reset his sights on the goal of getting a law degree. It had been a long time, but he was determined to get what he had wanted for more than 10 years.
After graduating in 1993 from the School of Law in Andover, Mass., Griffin, then 45, took the Bar Exam. He passed on his first try.
In February of 2008, 72 percent of the 363 applicants taking the test passed the Massachusetts Bar Exam on the first attempt.
“He got the degree not for monetary reasons, but for the love of knowledge; he still wanted to do social work. That says something about him,” D’Addario said.
Griffin doesn’t practice law though, he believes “it is a very adversarial environment.”
He thinks that courts sometimes use unfair advantages, and that it is not a place he has interest in.
“I admit, it is also an issue of confidence,” he said.
Having the degree comes in handy at work sometimes though.
In 1996, he began his current job, at the Department of Mental Health in Chelsea, Mass. Here he works as a counselor in a group home, using his degree to advocate for people with mental retardations. He also still balances the bell man job two or three days a week.
He uses his degree at the Department of Mental Health to make sure the clients get what is legally theirs. He also offers workshops for people there and helps with the benefits.
“There is a good relationship between the DMA and the law. In this job, I can use law and do social work,” he said.
He also occasionally does briefs for lawyers. He helps write on such items as custody and guardianship of the mentally ill. The writings are reports on the state of the law.
With his two main jobs and writing on the side, Griffin has little downtime. When he does, he likes to read non-fiction books relating to law and other classics. Helter Skelter, a book about Charles Manson, is one of his favorites
Family is also a huge part of his life he said and he is also finding time to help people.
“The guy has a big heart,” D’Addario said. “If you could only have one friend, he’d be a good one”.