Free legal help
You may be eligible for free legal help.
The best place to find the programs that offer free legal help is the Mass Legal Resource Finder website. It will ask you to answer a few simple questions to find programs for you. Legal Resource Finder: Find Legal Aid
Lawyer for the Day programs
In some courts, there are programs where volunteer lawyers spend a day helping people with their cases. These are called Lawyer for the Day programs. Each Lawyer for the Day program gives different types of help.
Check with the court where your case is to find out:
- If there is a Lawyer for the Day program
- If the program handles your type of case
- The days and hours the volunteer lawyers are at the court
See Lawyer for the Day programs for more information on these helpful programs.
Legal help for a part of a case: “Limited Assistance Representation” from a lawyer
Typically, lawyers represent clients for a whole case. However, there is a way to get legal help just for part of a case. This is called “Limited Assistance Representation” or “LAR.” With LAR, you and a lawyer agree what parts of a case you will handle and what parts the lawyer will handle. In other words, you limit what the lawyer does. That’s why it is called “Limited Assistance Representation.”
You can use LAR for any part of a case, including helping you with legal documents, arguing for you in a court event, or negotiating a settlement.
LAR can save you money in legal fees. With LAR it also may be easier to get a volunteer or pro bono lawyer. Why? Because LAR allows a lawyer to help you without committing to represent you for the whole case.
Lawyer referral services
Lawyer Referral Services can help you find a lawyer. Bar associations – professional groups for lawyers – often have referral services. Some nonprofit organizations also have referral services. Each of the following groups has information about how to find a lawyer.
- American Bar Association
- Massachusetts Bar Association
- Boston Bar Association
- Essex County Bar Association
- Franklin County Bar Association
- Hampden County Bar Association
- Hampshire County Bar Association
- Middlesex County Bar Association
- Norfolk County Bar Association
- Plymouth County Bar Association
- Worcester County Bar Association
Please also see Lawyer Referral Services from Mass. Legal Resource Finder.
For additional legal information and sources of assistance, see the Legal Resource Finder. Answer a few questions about your legal issue, income, and location, and get a tailor-made list of sources just for you.
Search for a lawyer by name, location, or specialty
To locate an attorney by name or city, go to Mass. Board of Bar Overseers, and enter your information in the Look Up an Attorney section.
Attorneys from other states
- Martindale-Hubbell is the country's most well-known legal directory. Here you can search their database of over one million lawyers.
- The Findlaw Lawyer Directory contains over 800,000 lawyers, listed through a clear user interface. The bottom banner has a link to search “By Name.”
Results of complaints about Massachusetts lawyers
The Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers handles complaints about lawyers. The BBO has a section called “Rules and Decisions.” There you can see if there are any decisions against attorneys. You also look up lawyers in the Look Up an Attorney section to see if there has been any “Public Discipline” against them.