I have known Brian, very well, for over 45 years – we were classmates at Belmont Hill School and have we have remained close throughout our lives. I cherish our deep and abiding friendship. I saw the joy that Cricket brought into Brian’s life when they were married in 1999, and I now count Cricket a trusted friend as well.
The Mullaneys are devoted to family. Brian and Cricket are loving parents, and family members. As people, Brain and Cricket are parents first and foremost. They treasure their three terrific children. Maura (19), is a graduate of the Winsor School, studying at the Sorbonne this year on a Saltonstall Scholarship, and is off to American University in the fall. Charlie (18) is thriving as a senior at Belmont Hill School and is an elite oarsman on an internationally competitive crew, who has been recruited to row at the University of Pennsylvania next year. Young Quinn (16) has dived into the Beaver Country Day School community and is already a captain of their wrestling team. The Mullaney children – each of whom I know – are a joy. Brian and Cricket have given them the support and the space to grow into fine young people – each different, each accomplished.
Brian is especially devoted to his father – a lion of the Boston business and legal communities, who steered Gillette to lasting success as its General Counsel and Vice Chair and served as a longtime trustee of the Boston Public Library. Brian’s mother, Rosemary, died in 2004, and Brian has been an absolute rock for his father in all the ensuing years.
Second, the Mullaneys have a wonderful sense of fun. His entire life, Brian has been creative, warm, and fun – he was that way at 16 as an editorial cartoonist and star athlete at Belmont Hill, at 21 as a piano-playing pole vaulter at Harvard, at 26 as a young advertising executive in Manhattan, and he still is now we as we compare notes and laugh about children’s progress (and occasional headaches) at 60. Brian is the driving catalyst for fun dinners in Boston among old Belmont Hill friends, dinner and cocktail gatherings at the beautiful homes that he and Cricket have brought their elegant touch to.
Brian and I have enjoyed Patriots and Celtics games, school plays, kids’ competitions, good bottles of wine, discussions of his travels throughout the world, chuckles with shared friends about our charismatic and colorful teachers. Life is precious and we all work hard – the ability to stop, breathe and have fun is essential. Brian and Cricket tease out that sense of fun, those laughs, those memorable moments among dear friends. They would bring that spirit to the Club, and that is a refreshing gift.
Brian and Cricket have an ethical and core commitment to charity and the common good that I deeply admire. I am not fully sure what drives Brian to want to help others, but that calling is real and I saw it in high school, where he was a core leader of our school annual charity drive. Not just a participant, not “resume building”, but real driven caring. I think part of it may come from the profound tragedy of losing his sister as a teenager, but that desire to help others is deep seated and so real.
Brian’s work in helping provide tens of thousands of surgeries in the poorest, most destitute countries is an achievement that will withstand the test of time and the barbs tossed at him. Ask the patients whose lives have been forever changed and made better. Sit down with Brian: he can tell you stories about underground ex pat bars in Kabul, heartrending poverty in Haiti, warm kindness in the most out of the way villages in Africa. He has been there. In person. Boots on the ground; helping the poorest. That is his real legacy.
I know that there have been negative stories, setbacks, and concerns raised about some of these efforts. It comes with the territory – do something great (and there is no doubt that Brian has indeed done great things), ruffle a few feathers, and someone will step up and take pot shots at you.
I have been an attorney for over 3 decades. A lesson I have learned well and tell clients is to be careful in judging harshly – your time in the barrel can come at any time and if you go out and do great, material things, it will likely happen to you at some time. Churchill led Britain through WWII and on the cusp of the final victory, was voted out of office amid a swirl of petty politics. This is the world – people are jealous and criticize those who lead.
Here is the fact: actively supported by Cricket, Brian has gone out and made the world better, and has inarguably saved and enhanced many thousands of lives. I have heard the criticism and it does not nearly match the achievement.
I am honored to call Brian my friend and stand by him without equivocation.
Brian and Cricket Mullaney are loyal and steadfast in the best senses of the word. For 4 decades I have watched Brian personally help Belmont Hill classmates who may have fallen through the cracks, or who are struggling with financial issues or depressions. Brian’s help may come in the form of a check/emergency cash. It could be an invitation to a dinner. A Red Sox game. I have seen it time and again through the years – and Cricket is always right there too.
We have a classmate who lost a longstanding family business – he would not have made it through his subsequent depression and challenges without Brian’s and Cricket’s care – phone calls, cash, dinners, notes. Just amazing kindness.
I serve on the boards of several charities. Brian and Cricket are – at all times – unstintingly generous and supportive. Not just with donations, but with time. They showed up to the ABCD Community Heroes celebration in Boston that I chaired and fully engaged with our community honorees.
They have supported the work of FCD (Freedom from Chemical Dependency) in preventing adolescent substance use and abuse.
They are superbly generous supporters of Belmont Hill School and Brian sits on the School’s Corporation, tasked with electing the Board of Trustees. If you sit on a charitable board you will get this comment: you need people that you can call, year in/year out, and ask for support and it can be awkward. It is never awkward with Brian and Cricket.
They are always there, always loyal, always engaged – and they ask for nothing in return.
One final sketch, a detail. In the spring of 1977, we had our senior prom, and on the morning of the prom, one of our classmates unceremoniously disinvited his date and took someone else. (He regrets it to this day.) I will never forget Brian’s reaction to the incident: he showed remarkable empathy and kindness to the jilted young woman – he was a prince- and he talked to our classmate to let him know that what he did was wrong. Not in a preachy manner – but in a caring manner as a friend. It has stayed with me. There is a fundamental decency to Brian that was there as a teenager and is there today.
In sum, I am honored to write this letter of support of Brian and Cricket Mullaney. They are devoted, fun, ethical, and loyal.
Emmett Lyne
Emmett E. Lyne is a Managing Director and member/shareholder of the firm. Emmett concentrates on corporate, regulatory and finance matters for a variety of corporate, charitable, and individual clients.
He has served as lead counsel for multi-billion dollar projects for major institutional clients as well as for multiple private and start-up companies and funds. He has served, and continues to serve, as a board member for privately held companies and charitable organizations. He also serves as a trustee for several trusts. Emmett works diligently to assist clients in achieving their goals, seeks to build consensus in multi-stakeholder public projects, and hopes to foster long-term, positive relationships with clients, professional colleagues, and his co-workers at Rich May
Awards & Honors
- Named a Top Rated Lawyer in Business, Commercial, Real Estate Law and General Practice by Martindale-Hubbell.
- Voted by his peers as one of the top 100 lawyers in Massachusetts as published by Boston Magazine.
- Awarded the highest ranking by Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory (AV – Legal Ability Rating: Very High to Preeminent).
- Mr. Lyne is an Honorary Citizen of the State of Oklahoma.
- Named a “New England Super Lawyer” by Thompson Reuters, 2005-2019.
- Appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court as Chair of the Oversight Committee of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers; Board member 2005-2012
- Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of Freedom from Chemical Dependency (FCD) Educational Services
- Member of the Board of Directors of Heading Home, Inc.
- Member of the Board of Trustees and former President of the Alumni Council of the Belmont Hill School. Mr. Lyne is also a member of the Board of Directors of Belmont Hill’s Multicultural Alumni Partnership (MAP).
- Member of the Board of Directors of the Bowdoin College Polar Bear Athletic Fund
- Volunteer youth sports coach (philosophy: every kid deserves a chance to play) and active in Bowdoin College alumni events
- Volunteer and dinner committee member (and past dinner Chair) for the ABCD annual Community Heroes Celebration; ABCD is Boston’s largest social services provider