Gillian Elise Pearson

Gillian Elise Pearson passed away on December 22, 2020, at the age of 68, from complications of acute myeloid leukemia. Jill leaves behind her beloved fiancé since 1996, Jim Sahakian, who took care of her throughout her illness, and his lovely extended family. She also leaves her beloved brothers, Paul of Tonawanda, NY and Bob of West Palm Beach, FL, and their children and grandchildren. Jill was the daughter of the late R. Bayla Pearson (Horblit) of Newton and Bernard J. Pearson, originally of Manchester, England.

Jill grew up in Waban and attended the wonderful Newton Public Schools from K-12. She was a freshman at Yale in the fall of 1970, the second year that Yale admitted women. She graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and with honors in psychology. She then ran the Crittenton Hastings House Clinic in Brighton for a year, before enrolling at Harvard Law School, where she worked for all three years with the Harvard Voluntary Defenders. Upon passing the bar, she became an Assistant District Attorney in Middlesex County, rising from district courts to supervising the Jury of 6 in Cambridge, to Superior Court. In her four years as an ADA, Jill tried hundreds of cases, including dozens of jury trials. Jill left to help run the Co-op Program at Northeastern Law School. She later became a staff attorney for the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct, where she stayed for over 24 years and rose to become the Executive Director for ten years.

Jill always wanted to make the world, or at least her community, a better place. She always tried to treat the victims of crime and observers of judicial misconduct, with whom she dealt, with respect and understanding, and to see that justice was done as much as a person in her position could control. Jill retired at the age of 60 and went back to trying to play the piano after a hiatus of fifty years. She also produced her own talk show for the local cable access station, WinCAM. She swam every day. Jill loved to garden, to read, to go to Crane Beach in Ipswich, and to dance.

Due to COVID restrictions, services will be private.

Donations in her memory may be made to Brigham & Women’s Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115.