The Hon. John C. Cratsley (Ret.) was an associate justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court. He first joined the bench in 1987. Cratsley retired in 2011.
During his tenure on the Superior Court, he was a regional administrative justice for the Suffolk County Civil Business (2005 to 2009) and the Norfolk County Civil and Criminal Business (2002 to 2003).
Several years earlier, Cratsely had served as an associate justice of the District Court in the Roxbury Division (1973 to 1983). After his tenure on the District Court bench, Cratsley became chief of the Public Protection Bureau at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. He remained in that capacity until rejoining the judiciary as an associate justice of the Superior Court in 1987.
His legal career also included working as a staff attorney and chief attorney with the Community Legal Assistance Office (1968 to 1972) and as a member of the Massachusetts Parole Board (1972 to 1973).
He received a B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1963. Cratsley went on to complete a J.D. at the University of Chicago Law School (1966) and an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center (1968).
He has taught as an instructor at Boston College and Harvard Law School.
Cratsley was chair of the Supreme Judicial Court’s Standing Committee on Dispute Resolution and the Superior Court’s ADR Committee. He also served as co-chair of the Administration of Justice Section of the Boston Bar Association and was a member of the Harvard Mediation Program’s Advisory Board and the Trial Court’s Standing Committee on Dispute Resolution.
Cratsley received the Judicial Excellence Award from the Massachusetts Judges Conference (2011) and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Frank J. Murray Inn of Court (2011). He was also named Judge of the Year by the Frank J. Murray Inn of Court in 2006.
After retiring from the bench, he became a case manager at JAMS. Cratsley was also appointed to serve as a special judicial magistrate by the chief justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court, during which time he presided over matters pertaining to the Drug Lab Litigation.
