The Massachusetts Senate Ethics Committee Tuesday appointed James Vorenberg '49, professor of Law and master of Dunster House, as special counsel to investigate alleged illegal activity by two Senate staffers.

Robert L. Cawley, Senate personnel director, and Saul Walter, Senate maintenance supervisor, were suspended without pay pending the committee's investigation of charges in The Boston Globe that the two men operated a private security guard business out of a State House office suite.

Senate President Kevin Harrington on Monday ordered the two men suspended and asked the Ethics Committee to conduct the investigation.

The Globe reported that Cawley and Walter had used senate offices and telephones to operate a security firm over a period of at least two months.

Outta Nowhere

John Abbott, Harrington's press secretary, said yesterday he knew of no similar charges of misconduct in the past.

Vorenberg had previously served the Ethics Committee last spring in its procedings against two State Senators convicted of extortion by the Federal District Court.

The Very First Time

Those deliberations resulted in the resignation of one senator and the expulsion of the other. This was the first time the Massachusetts Senate had expelled one of its members, Vorenberg said yesterday.

Investigations are not new to Vorenberg, who from 1973 to 1975 served as Associate Watergate Special Prosecutor under Archibald Cox '34, Carl M. Loeb University Professor.

Vorenberg said he will not be paid for his work and will continue his normal duties as a Law professor to "be prepared to take on public assignments from time to time."