A state Superior Court judge is at the center of allegations that the prestigious St. Paul’s School whitewashed a 2000 investigation into sexual misconduct by faculty and staff, in spite of the concerns of alumni who had reported the sexual abuse.

Judge Robert B. Gordon was an attorney for the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray and was the appointed outside counsel to the school in 2000 when he was assigned to investigate allegations of abuse by at least six faculty and staff members during the mid-1970s. At the time, school administrators promised a complete investigation without any interference, and said “the chips will have to fall where they may.’’

But, a new investigatory report into sexual misconduct at the school that was released Monday found that Gordon’s assignment “from the outset . . . was intended to assess risks of liability.’’ The investigation was meant to make sure no current faculty member still posed a risk, and set out to “preserve the reputation of [the school].’’

The new report, by the law firm Casner & Edwards, found for instance that Gordon did not pursue allegations against people who were dead, or believed to be dead, which would have opened the school up to liability. And, Gordon’s findings were distributed to only a handful of people, a concern for alumni who said the allegations were being covered up.

The Casner report was commissioned in response to a 2016 Boston Globe Spotlight report on sexual misconduct by a former teacher at the prestigious Episcopal school in Concord, N.H. The investigation concluded that 13 former faculty and staff members engaged in “substantiated claims of sexual misconduct.’’ Another 10 former faculty and staff members were accused of engaging in misconduct.

The authors of the Casner & Edwards report said that once they began their recent investigation, they learned that victims had reported the same abuse to the school in 2000, when Gordon was conducting his school-commissioned investigation. That investigation was not made public or shared with victims — a suggestion Gordon had made in part to “maintain as much confidentiality as circumstances allow.’’

At the time, a group of alumni that made the allegations “approached the [school rector] and questioned Mr. Gordon’s ‘independence’ and whether he could represent the interests of the victims since he was serving as counsel for the school,’’ according to the new report.

Gordon, who was appointed to the Superior Court bench in 2013, declined to comment through a spokeswoman for the state Trial Court.

In a recent interview with an independent investigator from Casner & Edwards, Gordon acknowledged he did not consider himself to be an “independent counsel’’ for the school, and that he limited his review to allegations only against people who were still alive.

Gordon acknowledged that “if he were to do the investigation today, he would probably not limit the scope of the engagement to investigating only those former faculty members who were alive,’’ according to the report.

The findings were released by the school Monday, along with a written apology from top school leaders.

“There is no excuse for the failure to pursue allegations when they were initially made in 2000,’’ Rector Michael G. Hirschfeld said in a statement. “That was an error in both priorities and basic judgment.’’

The report’s findings raise questions over the fine line that lawyers must straddle when they work for an entity as special counsel and then are assigned to investigate allegations that could open that entity to liability.

Daniel Medwed, a professor at Northeastern University School of Law, said that Gordon could not be faulted for aiming to protect a client’s reputation, as long as he did not break laws or cross ethical boundaries. But he said the very notion that Gordon worked for the school as an outside counsel erases any possibility that he could have conducted an independent investigation.

“You might have some inherent conflict because the person writing the checks, the school, might have a self-interest in the [investigation] coming out in a certain way,’’ he said. “That means your independence is inherently compromised.’’

Milton J. Valencia can be reached at milton.valencia@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @miltonvalencia.