Hon. Eleanor C. Sinnott is an associate justice of the Boston Municipal Court in Massachusetts. She was appointed to the bench by former Governor Mitt Romney in 2006, becoming the first Korean American to be appointed to the judiciary in Massachusetts.
While on the bench, Sinnott has held assignments as first justice of the Charlestown Division and an associate justice of the Central Division and the presiding judge of the Boston Veterans Treatment Court, which she established in 2014.
Sinnott was a former Lt. Commander in the United States Navy Reserve (1994 to 2005). During her military service, she served as an intelligence officer with the Special Operations Command Korea Unit.
She received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College in 1982. Sinnott then completed a J.D. at Boston College Law School in 1989.
After law school, she practiced as an attorney at Widett, Slater & Goldman for two years before becoming an assistant attorney general in the Trial Division of the Office of the Attorney General in 1991. Then, in 1995, she left her position there to serve as deputy general counsel in the Executive Office of Public Safety.
Prior to joining the bench, Sinnott had worked for nine years as chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts State Police (1997 to 2006).
Her parents immigrated to the United States from South Korea in the 1950s and settled in Belmont, Massachusetts. Sinnott was born near Belmont in Cambridge. She is married to the Hon. Richard J. Sinnott, who also presides as an associate justice of the Boston Municipal Court.
