Please click here to download a copy of the client alert. Update: U.S. Department of Labor Publishes Guidance Explaining Paid Sick Leave and Expanded Family and Medical Leave Under the Families…

Responding to the COVID-19 outbreak demands navigating uncharted territory, not least of which for Massachusetts local governments.  Cities and towns are making crucial public health decisions with complex effects like…

A Superior Court judge confirmed that municipalities are not obligated to enter into Host Community Agreements (“HCA”) with recreational cannabis retailers.  A prospective recreational cannabis retailer sued the City of…

Beginning construction, or even simply breaking ground, is no longer necessary to exercise rights under a use variance.  Last week, the Appeals Court clarified what qualifies as an “exercise” of…

The Cannabis Control Commission is coming out with new regulations and it appears that there are two significant potential changes of which municipalities should be aware. Home delivery will become…

The Supreme Judicial Court has held that a McLean Hospital program focused on developing the emotional and social skills of adolescents who exhibit extreme emotional dysregulation may, under the Dover…

Mina S. Makarious and Paul Kominers co-authored, “Spaulding v. Town of Natick School Committee: Allowing Free Speech while Accomplishing Municipal Work”, for the 2019 spring edition of the Boston Bar…

Just before 2018 ended, Governor Baker signed An Act Regulating and Insuring Short-Term Rentals into law.  The Act capped off years of public debate, Beacon Hill wrangling, and local regulation…

If a proposed activity is more therapeutic than educational, it not protected by the Dover Amendment and therefore may not be conducted in a zoning district where it is not…

The Supreme Judicial Court recently reaffirmed that a landowner whose property is damaged by a neighbor’s healthy tree cannot hold the neighbor responsible for damages. Shiel v. Rowell, SJC-12432 (July…