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Nothing up front. Injury cases are contingent fee: no fee unless we recover money for you. The first conversation is free.

Call anyway. We will tell you if there is still time.

A real person, day and night. Call or text (413) 426-8657.

At our firm, nothing up front and nothing out of pocket. We work on a contingent fee: our fee is a percentage of what we recover for you, set in a written agreement before we start, and we front the case costs. If there is no recovery, you owe no fee and no costs.

Generally three years from the date of the crash for an injury claim, and three years for a wrongful death claim. Some situations are shorter - a claim involving a government vehicle, for example, has its own notice requirements - and evidence disappears long before any deadline. Call early so we can confirm what applies to you.

Often, yes. No-fault means your own policy's Personal Injury Protection pays the first medical bills and part of your lost wages regardless of fault. You can step outside that system and pursue the at-fault driver for your full losses, including pain and suffering, once your reasonable medical expenses exceed $2,000 - or your injury is on the statute's own list: any fracture, permanent and serious disfigurement, qualifying loss of sight or hearing, loss of a body member, or death.

You can still recover in Massachusetts as long as you were not more than 50 percent at fault; your compensation is reduced by your share of the blame. Insurers know this rule and use it, which is one reason an early recorded statement can cost you real money. Let us look at the facts before you accept an adjuster's version of them.

Sooner than most people think. For injuries caused by snow or ice, Massachusetts requires written notice to the property owner within 30 days, separate from the three-year deadline to file suit. Missing that notice does not automatically end your claim: under G.L. c. 84, secs. 18 and 21 the owner can use it as a defense only by proving the delay actually prejudiced them - for example, by costing them the chance to inspect the scene before conditions changed. That is a real risk and an avoidable one, which is why the notice should go out early. If your fall involved ice or snow, call now rather than later.

Move fast. Surveillance systems overwrite footage on short cycles - sometimes days - and a preservation letter from a law firm obligates the store to keep what still exists. Independent evidence helps too: your photos, your clothes and shoes as they were, medical records from the same day, and the names of anyone who saw the area before or after you fell.

Possibly, yes. Massachusetts applies comparative negligence: you can recover as long as you were not more than 50 percent at fault, with damages reduced by your share. Owners raise this argument in nearly every fall case; whether it holds depends on how visible the hazard was and how long it had been there - facts that favor whoever investigates first.

Claims involving public ways and government property run under special rules: shorter notice deadlines and, for road and sidewalk defects, sharply limited recoveries against a city or town. Sometimes the better claim is against an abutting business or contractor rather than the municipality. This is exactly the kind of sorting a free first conversation is for.

No. Massachusetts is a strict-liability state for dog injuries: the owner or keeper is responsible even for a first bite and even if they handled the dog carefully. There is no 'one free bite' rule here, and you do not have to prove the owner did anything careless.

This is the most common hesitation we hear, and the answer changes the conversation: dog bite claims are almost always paid by homeowner's or renter's insurance - the coverage the owner has been paying premiums for. The claim is against a policy, not a person's savings, and handling it that way protects both the relationship and your recovery.

It is more protective. For children under seven, the law presumes the child was not trespassing, provoking, or teasing the dog - the burden falls on the owner to prove otherwise. Children also carry scars differently: a facial scar on a six-year-old is a decades-long injury, and the claim should be valued that way, sometimes after waiting to see how the scarring matures.

Essentially three: the injured person was trespassing, was committing another wrong, or was teasing, tormenting, or abusing the dog. For adult victims the insurer may try to stretch these; for children under seven the presumption runs the other way. Strict liability also covers more than bites - a dog that knocks someone down or causes a fall is the owner's responsibility too.

Almost never - workers' compensation is the exclusive remedy against your employer in Massachusetts, regardless of fault. The trade is that comp benefits are owed whether or not anyone was careless, including when the injury was partly your own doing. The suing question usually points somewhere else: at a third party whose negligence caused the injury.

If someone other than your employer contributed to your injury - a driver who hit you while you were working, a careless subcontractor on a shared site, a property owner, a defective machine - you can pursue a full injury lawsuit against them on top of your comp benefits, including pain and suffering that comp never pays. This is the most commonly missed claim in work injuries, and checking for it costs nothing.

No. Denials and premature terminations are routine insurer behavior, and Massachusetts has a dispute process through the Department of Industrial Accidents where many of them do not survive. Deadlines apply, so do not sit on a denial letter.

Reasonable and necessary medical treatment for the injury, weekly wage-replacement checks - roughly 60 percent of your average weekly wage while you are totally unable to work, with other rates for partial or permanent incapacity - and specific compensation for certain permanent losses, including scarring and disfigurement in defined cases. What comp does not pay is pain and suffering; that only comes through a third-party case.

Not if the lender chose them. When you take out a mortgage, the lender requires a closing attorney to handle the loan. That attorney is chosen by, and works for, the lender: they prepare the loan documents, certify title to the bank's satisfaction, and protect the lender's interest. Their duty runs to the lender.

Offer to purchase; the purchase and sale agreement, often signed about two weeks later; the financing and inspection deadlines the agreement sets; title examination at the registry; municipal and lien checks; the smoke and carbon monoxide certificate; and closing and recording.

The purchase and sale agreement. In Massachusetts the offer to purchase gets the ball rolling, but the P&S is the contract that controls the deal, and by the time you sign it the terms are hard to change.

Nothing. The first conversation is free and without obligation.

A will and a few basic documents spare your family confusion and cost, whatever the size of your estate. The question is rarely whether you have enough to plan. It is whether you want to decide these things yourself or leave them to a statute and a court.

No. A will tells the court who gets what; it does not skip the court. Probate is the process that gives a will legal force, appoints the person who settles the estate, and clears title so property can pass.

It is the Massachusetts term for the person who settles an estate. The older word executor still appears in many wills and means the same role.

Nothing. The first conversation is free and without obligation.

The document that governs the relationship. Look for the clauses that decide everything else: scope of work, payment terms, deadlines, termination rights, and any provision requiring notice, mediation, or arbitration before a lawsuit. Many contracts also specify which state's law applies and where disputes must be brought.

Stop deleting. Gather the contract, every amendment, invoices, emails, text messages, and notes of phone calls. In a dispute, the contemporaneous record usually matters more than anyone's later memory.

Often the most effective first step is a written demand that states the problem, what you are owed or expect, and a reasonable deadline to make it right. A measured letter resolves many disputes without litigation, and it creates a record that you tried to resolve the matter.

Nothing. The first conversation is free and without obligation.

Not by refusing. The only way to stop a partition sale is to buy out every owner who wants out, which takes cash or a refinance covering their shares.

No. Partition is an individual right. One owner can file over the objection of all the others.

Yes. The lender gets named in the petition and notified, and the mortgage is paid from the gross sale proceeds.

Nothing. The first conversation is free and without obligation.