MEET DJUNA

Djuna Perkins is an attorney with over 30 years of experience as a prosecutor, litigator, and external consultant to educational institutions and employers. She served for ten years as a Massachusetts assistant attorney general (AAG) and assistant district attorney (ADA). As an AAG, she worked in the Narcotics Unit, the Safe Neighborhood Initiative, and in Appeals. As an ADA in Suffolk County, Djuna was Chief of the Domestic Violence Unit, where she prosecuted the most egregious crimes of domestic violence, established domestic violence prosecution protocols, and oversaw all domestic violence prosecutions in Suffolk County.

Djuna entered the private practice of law in 2003, where she specialized in representing survivors of sexual abuse and harassment in litigation against offenders and responsible third parties, as well as the family of Julissa Brisman, who was allegedly murdered by “Craigslist Killer” Phillip Markov.  An amicus brief she wrote to the state’s highest court helped preserve a rule of evidence critical in sexual assault prosecutions.

Djuna opened her own law office in 2012 to specialize in institutional responses to allegations of sexual misconduct and discrimination. Djuna has served in over 150 internal discipline matters for major educational institutions, police departments, and employers throughout New England as a hearing officer, investigator or advocate.  Djuna’s investigation of Howie Leung, the teacher prosecuted for sexual abuse of a student at a Massachusetts school, resulted in the termination and license suspension of the superintendent and high school principal where Leung taught full-time, and the District adopted the significant institutional reforms she recommended.  Djuna also conducts effective, interactive trainings for teachers and students to prevent school-based sexual misconduct.

While maintaining her work with institutions, Djuna continued to represent survivors of sexual abuse and discrimination in third party litigation in her solo practice, including a patient molested by disgraced fertility doctor Roger Hardy that exposed a decade-long pattern of patient sexual abuse.  She has also successfully represented many individuals accused of crime and school policy violations. 

In addition to her decades of criminal and civil jury trial experience in the District and Superior Courts of Massachusetts, Djuna has appeared before the Massachusetts Appeals Court, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. Her work with educational institutions has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and in The Chronicle of Higher Education.    She has served as an expert witness in sexual misconduct investigations, taught as an adjunct professor at Northeastern University and has published articles in the Massachusetts Law Review, the Boston Bar Journaland Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. She has been named a Massachusetts Super Lawyer since 2018. Djuna is a graduate of Smith College and Boston University School of Law.

Outside her law practice, Djuna coaches rowing, rows with a competitive women’s rowing team, and upcycles vintage furniture.  She lives in Dedham with her husband.  They have three adult children.