Gordon J. MacDonald (born November 27, 1961) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as the 37th chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court since March 4, 2021. A Republican, he previously served as the 30th attorney general of New Hampshire from 2017 to 2021 and, before entering public office, was a congressional chief of staff, a federal appellate law clerk, and a commercial-litigation partner at Nixon Peabody LLP.
As attorney general, MacDonald created a Civil Rights Unit and oversaw investigations involving St. Paul's School, the Youth Development Center, and the Hillsborough County Attorney's office, and pursued litigation concerning the Wire Act, PFAS contamination, and Massachusetts's taxation of remote workers.
The Executive Council rejected his first nomination as chief justice by a 3–2 vote in 2019 and confirmed him on renomination in January 2021, after the office had remained vacant for about eighteen months. As chief justice, he has led initiatives involving behavioral-health diversion, domestic-violence procedures, court efficiency, and judicial funding; written opinions on disability accommodation, public access to police-misconduct records, transgender-student privacy, and education taxation; and chaired a national committee on legal-education and admissions reform.
Beginning in late 2025, his tenure drew scrutiny over an employment payment to a senior court administrator; a state Department of Justice review found no reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct but concluded that human-resources best practices had not been followed, with legislative and litigation developments following. He began a medical leave of absence in July 2026.
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Early life and education
MacDonald was born on November 27, 1961, in Los Angeles, California, to Marcelline (Kuglen) MacDonald and Gordon J. F. MacDonald, a geophysicist and environmental scientist who served on the first Council on Environmental Quality and joined Dartmouth College's faculty in 1972. His family moved to Hanover, New Hampshire when he was about ten; he attended public schools there and graduated from Hanover High School.
He earned a A.B. in government from Dartmouth College in 1983, cum laude with High Honors, after writing an honors thesis on the peace movement in the Netherlands. He graduated from Cornell Law School in 1994, magna cum laude, was elected to the Order of the Coif, and served as an article editor of the Cornell Law Review, which published his student note, "Stray Katz: Is Shredded Trash Private?", 79 Cornell L. Rev. 452 (1994).
Early career
Congressional and political work
Before law school, MacDonald spent more than seven years on the Washington staff of U.S. Senator Gordon J. Humphrey, Republican of New Hampshire, serving from 1985 as a legislative aide and legislative director and becoming chief of staff in 1990; his work focused principally on energy, environmental, and public-works issues.
He later left private practice during 1999–2000 to work for Dan Quayle's presidential campaign and Humphrey's campaign for governor of New Hampshire. His Republican affiliations also included serving as counsel to the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, attending the 2016 Republican National Convention as a Marco Rubio delegate, sitting on the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy board from 2010 to 2017, and helping found the New Hampshire lawyers chapter of the Federalist Society around 2013.
Legal practice
From 1994 to 1995, MacDonald clerked for Judge Norman H. Stahl of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and was admitted to the New Hampshire and Massachusetts bars in 1995. He was a litigation associate at Hale and Dorr LLP (now WilmerHale) in Boston from 1995 to 1997 and at Nelson, Kinder, Mosseau & Gordon, P.C. in Manchester from 1997 to 1999. After his campaign work, he joined Nixon Peabody LLP in Manchester in 2001 and was a litigation partner from 2005 until 2017. His commercial-litigation practice focused on hospitals, health-care systems, and trade associations in reimbursement and taxation disputes.
MacDonald represented health-care providers challenging a 2009 law transferring about $110 million from the New Hampshire Medical Malpractice Joint Underwriting Association to the state general fund. In Tuttle v. New Hampshire Medical Malpractice Joint Underwriting Ass'n, the state Supreme Court held that the transfer violated policyholders' vested property rights, and funds were returned to about 6,000 policyholders. He also represented New Hampshire hospitals in Medicaid reimbursement-rate and Medicaid Enhancement Tax litigation, culminating in a 2014 omnibus settlement for twenty-seven hospitals implemented through legislation signed by Governor Maggie Hassan.
His clients also included Purdue Pharma, requiring his later recusal from the state's opioid litigation, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester in clergy-abuse settlement proceedings. He authored the third and fourth editions of the treatise Wiebusch on New Hampshire Civil Practice and Procedure.
Professional service
MacDonald served on the New Hampshire Supreme Court Board of Bar Examiners from 2004 to 2017 and chaired it from 2010, helping implement the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program at the University of New Hampshire School of Law and leading the state's transition to the Uniform Bar Examination. He was a National Conference of Bar Examiners trustee from 2014 to 2017; chaired the state Supreme Court's Commission on the New Hampshire Bar in the 21st Century in 2016–2017; and also served on the Access to Justice Commission (2012–2017), the Campaign for Legal Services Leadership Council (chair, 2012–2015), the Committee on Character and Fitness (2018–2021), and as an Eleanor Campbell Charitable Fund trustee (2014–2017).
As a volunteer with the Bar Association's Domestic Violence Emergency (DOVE) Project, he represented domestic-violence victims in protective-order cases pro bono. He received the Bar Association's Distinguished Service to the Public Award in 2014 and the Campaign for Legal Services' John E. Tobin Jr. Justice Award in 2017. Discussing access to justice, he cited trial courts in which more than 90 percent of litigants in some types of important cases were self-represented and called closing that gap "enormously important".
Attorney General of New Hampshire
Appointment and tenure
Newly elected Governor Chris Sununu nominated MacDonald as attorney general in March 2017. Although he lacked prosecutorial experience, he was known for litigation against the state on behalf of hospital clients and received broad support in the legal community. The Executive Council confirmed him unanimously on April 5, 2017, and he was sworn in on April 13, succeeding Joseph Foster. He headed a department of about 141 employees, including 61 attorneys, and co-chaired National Association of Attorneys General committees on charities and training.
Civil rights and police accountability
In December 2017, Sununu and MacDonald announced a Department of Justice Civil Rights Unit and diversity advisory council to investigate and prosecute civil-rights violations and hate crimes, coordinate enforcement, and improve community outreach; the unit was later expanded as complaints rose.
His office issued 2018 guidance for the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, or "Laurie List," of officers with potential credibility problems. Litigation over the list's confidentiality continued through his tenure until the state Supreme Court ruled in October 2020 that it was not a confidential personnel document.
Institutional investigations and oversight
In July 2017, the department opened a criminal investigation into St. Paul's School's handling of sexual-assault and abuse reports. In September 2018, MacDonald said investigators had evidence supporting possible institutional child-endangerment charges, but the State instead entered a five-year agreement, described in contemporary reporting as unprecedented, requiring an independent compliance overseer, reporting and training reforms, victim assistance, and reimbursement of certain costs. When the first overseer, Jeffrey Maher, resigned in October 2020, alleging resistance and an intolerable working environment, MacDonald called the allegations serious, and the agreement continued with additional terms.
In July 2019, the department announced indictments against two former Youth Development Center counselors and a wider investigation of alleged abuse at the state youth detention facility. It dismissed dozens of indictments in March 2020, saying speedy-trial deadlines would constrain the expanding investigation and that charges could be refiled; most resulting prosecutions, verdicts, settlements, and compensation programs occurred after MacDonald left office.
In September 2019, after Hillsborough County Attorney Michael Conlon declined MacDonald's suggestion that he resign amid complaints from police chiefs, MacDonald placed the county office's day-to-day criminal-law-enforcement functions under state supervision, citing prosecution and management failures; Conlon remained in office and disputed the allegations. The Executive Council rejected MacDonald's proposal that former Manchester Police Chief David Mara oversee the office; modified state supervision continued until June 2020.
Civil and federal litigation
Because MacDonald had represented Purdue Pharma, he recused himself from the state's opioid case; under screened leadership, the department sued the company in August 2017.
In February 2019, the department and the New Hampshire Lottery Commission challenged the federal government's revised Wire Act interpretation, which threatened online lottery sales and interstate products. A federal district court ruled in June 2019 that the Act applied only to sports gambling, and the First Circuit affirmed in January 2021.
New Hampshire also sued eight chemical manufacturers, including 3M and DuPont-related entities, in May 2019 over alleged statewide PFAS contamination, seeking investigation, remediation, treatment, monitoring, and natural-resource damages.
In October 2020, MacDonald filed an original action in the U.S. Supreme Court, New Hampshire v. Massachusetts, challenging Massachusetts's taxation of New Hampshire residents working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that the policy infringed New Hampshire's sovereignty. Other states supported New Hampshire, the U.S. Department of Justice supported Massachusetts, and the Court declined jurisdiction in June 2021, after MacDonald had become chief justice.
Election law and COVID-19 orders
During MacDonald's tenure, the department investigated and prosecuted individual wrongful-voting cases and defended the 2017 voter-registration law known as SB 3. Election activists later criticized his handling of a roughly 300-vote discrepancy in the 2020 Windham recount.
From March 2020, the department advised on and defended Governor Sununu's COVID-19 emergency orders, including the gathering restriction challenged in Binford v. Sununu. A March 2020 memorandum instructed law enforcement to emphasize public information and voluntary compliance, but enforcement against small businesses later became a source of opposition to MacDonald's judicial confirmation.
Chief Justice of New Hampshire
Nomination and confirmation
Sununu first nominated MacDonald on June 4, 2019, to succeed Chief Justice Robert J. Lynn, who was approaching mandatory retirement at 70. MacDonald had applied that February for appointment as an associate justice. Legal figures supported the nomination, while civil-liberties and progressive groups questioned his lack of judicial experience, political background, and views on reproductive rights. On July 10, 2019, the Democratic-controlled Executive Council rejected him 3–2 on party lines; critics described him as partisan and strongly conservative, while MacDonald cited support from prominent Democrats, including former Chief Justice John T. Broderick Jr., and remained attorney general. Sununu said he was "absolutely disappointed".
No replacement was nominated after Lynn retired on August 26, 2019. Associate Justice Gary E. Hicks served as acting chief justice while the court operated with four members, and the chief justiceship stayed vacant for about eighteen and a half months.
After Republicans regained the council in the 2020 elections, Sununu announced MacDonald's renomination on January 6, 2021. At a seven-and-a-half-hour public hearing on January 21, held under COVID-19 protocols, 37 witnesses testified. Much of the legal establishment supported MacDonald across party lines, while opposition came from two directions — reproductive-rights and voting-rights advocates on one flank; anti-mandate activists, small-business owners, and Windham-recount campaigners on the other — with RebuildNH petitions bearing about 1,000 signatures also submitted.
MacDonald pledged that "it will be my duty to uphold the law regardless of my personal views, and I will do so"; citing the Code of Judicial Conduct, he generally declined to preview rulings, telling Councilor Cinde Warmington — the lone Democrat — that landmark precedents including Roe v. Wade were binding. Witnesses included Kelly Ayotte, Judge Norman Stahl, Chief Judge Landya McCafferty, former chief justices Broderick and Lynn, retired Justice Carol Ann Conboy, Deputy Attorney General Jane Young, business owners, election activists, law professor Leah Plunkett, and legislators warning of recurring recusal problems.
The council confirmed MacDonald 4–1 on party lines on January 22, 2021, with Warmington dissenting over "serious questions" about his impartiality on reproductive and voting rights. Sununu called him "one of the most highly qualified individuals ever to serve as Chief Justice". He was sworn in on March 4, 2021, as the 37th chief justice, succeeding Hicks as head of the court; Jane Young became acting attorney general. Under Part 2, Article 78 of the state constitution, he may serve until age 70, in November 2031.
Court administration
Under Part 2, Article 73-a of the state constitution, MacDonald serves as administrative head of all New Hampshire courts, overseeing initiatives involving behavioral-health diversion, court organization, domestic-violence procedures, funding, and diversity. The Judicial Branch launched statewide Sequential Intercept Mapping to identify opportunities to divert people with behavioral-health needs toward treatment and convened a Mental Health Summit. It also released a 2025 efficiency study and created a statewide administrative-judge position filled by Circuit Court Judge Christopher Keating.
MacDonald repeatedly sought additional judges and staff from lawmakers, detailing requests for seven new Circuit Court judges and dozens of staff at the Bar's 2023 Midyear Meeting. In spring 2025, warning that proposed budget reductions could cause courthouse closures, jury-trial delays, and layoffs, he imposed a hiring freeze. He launched a court diversity, equity, and inclusion project in 2022; according to Dianne Martin's later statement to state investigators, in late February 2025 he directed by text message that it be ended.
After Lindsay Smith, denied a final protective order in New Hampshire, was shot in Salem, Massachusetts, in November 2021, MacDonald ordered an institutional review and created a Task Force on Domestic Violence Cases. The review found the judge's ruling supportable on the record but identified systemic improvements; the task force examined forms, legal assistance, education, legal standards, information sharing, and case processing, and reported to the Supreme Court in 2022. In July 2025, he ordered another review after Marisol Fuentes-Huaracha was killed in Berlin by Michael Gleason following domestic-violence proceedings; it found sufficient evidence had existed to continue Gleason's detention and identified gaps in the protection system, including the effects of magistrates' abrupt departures.
Selected opinions
In Paine v. Ride-Away, Inc. (2022), MacDonald wrote for a unanimous court that therapeutic-cannabis use authorized by state law was not categorically incapable of being a reasonable disability accommodation under the state Law Against Discrimination, requiring individualized analysis, although employers were not required to permit workplace possession or impairment.
In Provenza v. Town of Canaan (2022), he wrote the unanimous decision requiring release under the Right-to-Know Law of a taxpayer-funded investigation into alleged excessive force by a Canaan police officer, emphasizing the public interest in how the municipality investigated alleged official misconduct.
MacDonald dissented in State v. Sargent (2024), arguing that the evidence supported a former police chief's official-oppression conviction after the majority reversed it for lack of proof of a statutory personal "benefit". Weeks later, he dissented again when the majority allowed three retired troopers who had admitted inflating or falsifying activity statistics to seek removal from the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, writing that prosecutors' disclosure obligations contain no expiration date.
In Doe v. Manchester School District (2024), MacDonald wrote the 3–1 majority opinion upholding a school-district policy encouraging staff not to disclose a student's transgender or gender-nonconforming status without consent, holding that an advisory rather than mandatory nondisclosure policy did not unconstitutionally burden parental rights; Justice Melissa Countway dissented. Reuters described it as the first state-supreme-court ruling on school transgender-disclosure policies; legislation signed by Governor Kelly Ayotte in July 2026 required employees to answer certain parental inquiries and was widely described as overriding the decision's practical effect.
In Monadnock Rod and Gun Club v. Town of Peterborough (2024), he wrote the decision rejecting a gun club's challenge to enforcement action over a shooting range built partly on neighboring property, declining to reach an unpreserved Second Amendment argument.
In Attorney General v. Hood (2025), the court, in its first examination of the state Civil Rights Act, unanimously affirmed dismissal of complaints against members of the white-nationalist group NSC-131 over a "Keep New England White" banner in Portsmouth, holding the State's proposed construction unconstitutionally overbroad and the trespass allegations insufficient.
Recusals and disqualification
Because matters from his attorney-general tenure continued for years, MacDonald has recused from a number of cases. He did not participate in the ConVal school-funding litigation, in which the remaining justices held in July 2025 that the state's per-pupil contribution was unconstitutionally low. He also recused from litigation over Governor Sununu's records-retention policy, in which the remaining court split 2–2, leaving the lower-court ruling in place, and from a Right-to-Know dispute over police disciplinary files.
In a separate Rand appeal (docket 2026-0150), plaintiffs moved on March 16, 2026, to recuse four justices, arguing as to MacDonald that his attorney-general role in the related ConVal litigation created an appearance concern. The State objected, the court declined to alter its recusal procedures, and the challenged justices considered the requests separately, with the first denying recusal in May. On June 4, 2026, MacDonald denied the motion as to himself, distinguishing Rand from ConVal, noting that he had left the attorney general's office before Rand was filed, and citing the duty not to recuse without adequate grounds. Plaintiffs sought reconsideration on June 18; the motion remained pending when he began medical leave, and no body has found misconduct in connection with the dispute.
National judicial service
In August 2023, the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) created the Committee on Legal Education and Admissions Reform (CLEAR) and appointed MacDonald chair. With Vice Chair Justice C. Shannon Bacon of New Mexico, the committee conducted more than 90 stakeholder interviews, twelve listening sessions, surveys of thousands of judges, attorneys, and law students, and a March 2025 national convening in Cincinnati.
The July 2025 CLEAR report urged state supreme courts to lead reform of legal education and licensure, offering eight recommendations spanning practice readiness, accreditation, rankings, alternative licensure pathways, public-service lawyers, and rural practice. It cited New Hampshire's Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program, which MacDonald had helped implement, as a curricular licensure model. "What we are doing is not working," he told the ABA Journal, which profiled him in its Legal Rebels series. CLEAR later became a standing CCJ/COSCA committee with MacDonald continuing as chair, and in February 2026 launched a law-school accreditation working group chaired by Bacon.
MacDonald joined the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) board of directors in July 2025. As of mid-2026, he was president-elect of the Conference of Chief Justices and chair-elect of the NCSC board, offices currently held jointly by South Dakota Chief Justice Steven Jensen; he had not yet assumed either office.
Hantz Marconi investigation
In 2024, Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi came under criminal investigation over an effort to intervene with Governor Sununu concerning the state's investigation of her husband, ports director Geno Marconi. She pleaded no contest in October 2025 to misdemeanor criminal solicitation, returned from administrative leave, and retired from the court in February 2026.
MacDonald was interviewed as a witness on August 2, 2024; a transcript released in January 2025 recorded him telling investigators, "I did not know she was going to see the governor." In an October 2024 recusal motion supported by her affidavit, Hantz Marconi stated that she had informed MacDonald of her intent to request the meeting and that he raised no objection. Legislators later cited the differing accounts during debate over a proposed 2026 House inquiry; both were sworn statements, and no tribunal has determined which is accurate.
Dianne Martin employment matter and related scrutiny
Dianne Martin worked under MacDonald at the Department of Justice, where he promoted her to chief of staff in 2019. After serving on the Public Utilities Commission — she was hired two years into a six-year term — she became director of the Judicial Branch's Administrative Office of the Courts in 2021 at a salary exceeding $143,000.
According to NHPR and the attorney general's investigative records, on February 28, 2025, Justices Melissa Countway and Patrick Donovan told Martin that her position was eliminated, and she was escorted from the building. Offered the lower-paid post of general counsel to the Office of Bar Admissions, she initially declined, then reconsidered after emailing MacDonald, who praised her work and urged her to reconsider. Negotiation through her attorney produced a re-offer at a higher salary of $154,109, fully remote work, a waived probationary period, and MacDonald again as her direct supervisor. Judge Christopher Keating, her interim replacement, told investigators there "may have been an implicit threat but not an explicit threat of litigation," which Martin denies.
Rather than transfer directly, Martin — on paid administrative leave through April 1 — was laid off for April 2–3 and rehired April 4. The gap allowed her to receive $43,548 for unused sick and vacation time and $6,307 in termination pay, totaling $49,856.83, a benefit ordinarily available only on retirement or layoff. Weeks into the new role, MacDonald requested a pay increase for her. The payment came the same month as the branch hiring freeze, and Martin's appointment overlapped for five months with her retiring predecessor's employment at matching salaries, despite an apparent two-week limit in branch policy.
A Judicial Branch human-resources employee reported the arrangement to the Department of Administrative Services, describing it in contemporaneous records as the chief's proposal and saying Martin wanted the layoff payment. The Boston Globe identified the employee as human-resources manager Suzanne M. Gelinas, who had objected in March 2025 and later wrote that she could no longer work in what she called an unethical organization. She left state employment in April; department officials said she had not been fired.
After NHPR reported the arrangement on October 23, 2025, the four participating justices issued a joint statement asserting that all personnel decisions concerning Martin were made collectively by the Supreme Court and followed standard personnel policies. MacDonald's attorneys, Jane E. Young — his former deputy attorney general — and Mark D. Morrissette, contacted the attorney general's office the day NHPR published its report, describing the account as an "incomplete" and "misleading" characterization of a complex personnel matter. On October 27, Deputy Attorney General James T. Boffetti sent records-preservation letters to Martin and to Young and Morrissette. The attorney general's office confirmed a preliminary review on November 5.
Medical leave
On July 31, 2026, the Judicial Branch announced that MacDonald was taking an immediate medical leave of absence, releasing no reason or expected return date out of stated respect for his privacy; Senior Associate Justice Patrick E. Donovan assumed his administrative duties.
Personal life
MacDonald married Jennifer A. Eber, a Dartmouth classmate and attorney, and they have a daughter. As of 2026, he was a party to ongoing divorce proceedings; allegations raised during the 2026 House debate are discussed under Legislative response. He is an avid runner and swimmer.
Selected works
Gordon J. MacDonald, Wiebusch on New Hampshire Civil Practice and Procedure (Matthew Bender & Co./LexisNexis, 3rd and 4th eds.; 4th ed. 2014), a multi-volume treatise originally written by Richard V. Wiebusch.
Gordon J. MacDonald, "Stray Katz: Is Shredded Trash Private?", 79 Cornell L. Rev. 452 (1994), a student note on Fourth Amendment privacy in shredded trash.
Professionalism and legal-ethics articles co-authored with William C. Saturley in the New Hampshire Bar News and Bar Journal, 1997–98.