Massachusetts: legal help you can afford
There is no public defender for a divorce in Massachusetts, or anywhere else — the right to a free lawyer is a criminal-case right, and a divorce is a civil case. What exists instead is on this page, with the link to each one. Start with the fee waiver and the question of whether your spouse can be made to pay your legal fees, because those two are the ones people never think to ask about.
See a different stateMassachusetts
The five things to try, in this order
Ordered by how much they are worth relative to how hard they are, not alphabetically.
- Ask about the filing fee waiver. In Massachusetts it is called Affidavit of Indigency. If approved, can waive/have the state pay ‘normal fees and costs’ and, in some cases, ‘extra fees and costs’; a ‘File for Indigency Online’ guided tool exists.
- Ask whether your spouse can be ordered to pay your lawyer. Permits the court to order one spouse to pay the reasonable attorney’s fees and litigation expenses of the other spouse in a divorce case. (Mass. Gen. Laws c. 208, § 38)
- Check the statewide legal-aid portal. MassLegalHelp.org lists the program that covers your county and what it takes.
- Use the court self-help service. Mass.gov Courts Self-Help / Probate and Family Court. Court Service Centers help fill out Probate & Family Court forms by Zoom, phone, or in person; some Probate Courts also have a Lawyer for the Day program.
- Try the bar referral service. Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service (LRS). (617) 654-0400 / toll-free (866) MASS-LRS; LRS attorneys may charge $25 for the first half-hour consultation; MBA also runs a free monthly Dial-A-Lawyer hotline.
Legal aid in Massachusetts
Legal aid organizations are funded to serve people under an income threshold, and family cases are one of the areas they most often take. Being turned down by one is not the end of it — the threshold, the caseload and the priorities differ by program and by month.
| Organization | Who it covers | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Legal aid programs listed via Massachusetts Legal Resource Finder (e.g. Community Legal Aid, Northeast Legal Aid, South Coastal Counties Legal Services, Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association) | statewide, organized by region |
Harvard Law School Legal Services Center – Family Justice Clinic. Clinics are free, supervised by faculty, and the students have far more time for your case than a stretched legal aid lawyer does. They take few cases and they follow the academic year, so the answer depends heavily on when you ask.
Worth knowing about Massachusetts
- Northeastern University School of Law also runs a clinic representing domestic violence survivors in complex family law cases.
Limited scope representation. You hire a lawyer for one piece — one hearing, one document, a review of an agreement before you sign it — and do the rest yourself. It costs a fraction of full representation and it puts a lawyer in the two or three moments that actually change the outcome. How it works, and where it is permitted.
What we could not confirm for this state
Listed rather than filled in. Every one of these is something we went looking for and could not stand behind.
- a single statewide fee-waiver form number, which in many states does not exist because each court uses its own
If you know one of these and we have it wrong or missing, tell us and we will check it and credit the correction.
Compiled 31 August 2026 from each organization’s own site, the state courts and the state bar. Legal aid funding and eligibility change, sometimes mid-year. Always check the link before relying on anything here. Corrections welcome.
Keep reading
- The national picture — fee waivers, unbundling, fee awards
- The Massachusetts divorce kit — forms, fees and deadlines
- Doing it without a lawyer
- Questions to ask a lawyer
- What divorce costs
- What two households cost