Joe Serpa

Massachusetts Attorney Joe Serpa

Joe Serpa is a Boston criminal defense attorney and the sole attorney at Serpa Law Office. A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, he has defended people accused of crimes in the Massachusetts and federal courts for thirty years, from clerk-magistrate hearings in the district courts to first-degree murder trials in the Superior Court. When a client retains Attorney Serpa, Attorney Serpa is the attorney who appears in court.

Cases Ended Before They Become Public and Searchable

The best outcome in a criminal matter is the one nobody ever learns about. For nearly all misdemeanor accusations against a person who has not been arrested, and many felonies, Massachusetts requires a clerk-magistrate hearing under G.L. c. 218, § 35A before any criminal complaint may issue. The hearing happens in a conference room rather than a courtroom, no judge presides, nothing has reached a public docket, and if the complaint is denied, withdrawn, or held open and later dismissed, the matter ends there: no complaint, no arraignment, and no entry on a criminal record, because a record begins at arraignment. Attorney Serpa prepares these hearings the way he prepares trials, and a large share of the matters that come to this office end in that room. Where a complaint has already issued, the same work continues in the days before arraignment, because a resolution reached before the first court date can still spare the client most of what a criminal case costs.

Ending a case privately matters most to the people who have the most to lose from a public one. College students face school discipline, internship and job screening, and graduate school applications that ask about charges. Nurses, teachers, attorneys, brokers, and other licensed professionals answer to boards that ask the same questions. Noncitizens can face immigration consequences from proceedings that a citizen would shrug off. For all of them, the difference between an application denied at a clerk’s hearing and a charge dismissed months later in open court is the difference between an incident that stayed private and a record that must be explained for years. That difference is why this office treats the earliest stage of a case as the most important one.

Preparation

Every case at this office is prepared for trial from the first day of representation, because prosecutors evaluate a case differently when the defense is ready to try it. Attorney Serpa personally handles every court appearance. The preparation shows in the outcomes: jury acquittals in cases including first-degree murder, aggravated rape, firearms offenses, and OUI, and many matters ended at the clerk-magistrate stage before any criminal record existed.

Candor

Some cases should resolve, and timing the best outcome is a skill of its own. Other cases should be tried. The evidence decides which is which, and clients hear the office’s honest assessment, not the assessment that is easiest to deliver.

Trial

Joe Serpa tries criminal cases, and the way he tries them explains the way he practices. Cross-examination is a an innate skill. Either a lawyer has it or does not. Two rules govern every cross-examination Attorney Serpa conducts: be tough but fair to the witness, and respect the jury’s intelligence and time. He questions without a script, because an examination is a conversation, and the control comes from listening and preparation rather than paper. Jurors want fairness, and they want to do their jobs without distracting theatrics. A lawyer who gives them both earns the only thing that decides close cases: their trust.

Attorney Serpa has cross-examined witnesses alleging sexual assault by treating the allegation with respect while bringing out the biases, gaps, and inconsistencies the jury needed to weigh. He has examined spouses and partners in domestic violence trials the same way. Police officers are handled more firmly, and never with belligerence. The approach is not a courtesy; it is how the important answers to critical questions come out, and it is why his clients keep the jury’s trust through the most delicate subjects a courtroom hears.

Trial preparation begins with investigation, not with the police report. Attorney Serpa visits the scene, subpoenas the records, obtains the video before it is overwritten, and reads every statement against every other, because the case the Commonwealth files is rarely the whole story. He challenges weak evidence before trial through motions to suppress, and confronts and challenged what remains in the courtroom. In an opening statement, he promises the jury only what the evidence will show, and he keeps the promise, because jurors remember. Through cross-examination he builds the record one admitted fact at a time. In closing, he asks for the verdict the evidence has already earned, arguing from the answers the witnesses gave rather than from rhetoric. Closing statements bring it all together, and always to a not guilty verdict as of 2013.

Background

Attorney Serpa earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and his undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His enrollment at Georgetown Law Center was in a selective, specialized program teaching criminal and constitutional law with professors from the federal bench, the Department of Justice, and the criminal defense bar. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1995 and has practiced criminal defense, and only criminal defense, for three decades, in the district courts, the Boston Municipal Court, and the Superior Court. He is a member of the Boston Bar Association, the Massachusetts Bar Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

The practice is built on a single principle: every case is prepared for trial from the first day of representation. Trial readiness is what creates leverage and preparedness which are essential for case dismissals. A prosecutor who knows the case will be tried, and tried competently, evaluates a plea or a dismissal differently than one who expects a plea by default. Most matters are resolved well before a jury is seated, many of them at the clerk-magistrate stage or pre-arraignment before any CORI entry is created. The cases that cannot be resolved are tried and have ended in acquittals with very few exceptions over thirty years.

Clients consistently describe a steady, accessible attorney who returns calls and explains the realistic range of outcomes without false assurance. Criminal defense in Massachusetts is high-stakes work, and the most difficult courtroom moments call for a reliable voice rather than theatrics. There is no better asset than the trust and respect of a jury or judge. Grandstanding and sword rattling have the opposite effect. That respect and confidence is the representation Attorney Serpa has provided for three decades across the district courts and Boston Municipal Court of Eastern and Central Massachusetts.

A Jury Trial Record

Trials are a small share of any criminal practice, but they are the part that defines it. The following are representative not-guilty verdicts returned in jury trials. A fuller account of dismissals and results appears on the Why Serpa Law Office and also the case results pages.

• Not guilty, all counts: First-Degree Murder, Plymouth County Superior Court (Comm. v. MR)
• Not guilty, all counts: Aggravated Rape, Rape by Force, Rape and Abuse, Indecent Assault and Battery, Youthful Offender life-felony trial, Essex County Juvenile Court (Comm. v. LF)
• Not guilty, all counts: Aggravated Rape, Indecent Assault and Battery, Suffolk Superior Court (Comm. v. KB)
• Not guilty, all counts: Rape (date rape), Indecent Assault and Battery, Middlesex Superior Court (Comm. v. NA)
• Not guilty of the felony indictments: Aggravated Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon (attempted murder with a knife), Suffolk Superior Court (Comm. v. JB)
• Not guilty, all counts: Mayhem, Aggravated Assault and Battery, Suffolk County Superior Court (Comm. v. AC)
• Not guilty, all counts: Carrying a Firearm, Armed Career Criminal violation, Suffolk County Superior Court (Comm. v. MR)
• Not guilty, all counts: Carrying a Firearm, Possession of a Controlled Substance with Intent to Distribute, Suffolk County Superior Court (Comm. v. WT)
• Not guilty, all counts: Indecent Assault and Battery (3 counts), Intimidation of a Witness, Bristol County District Court (Comm. v. RJ)
• Not guilty, all counts: Indecent Assault and Battery, Worcester County District Court (Comm. v. TH)
• Not guilty, all counts: Photographing an Unsuspecting Nude Person, Boston Municipal Court (Northeastern University) (Comm. v. SM)
• Not guilty, all counts: Assault and Battery on a Family or Household Member, Witness Intimidation, Cambridge District Court (Comm. v. AK)
• Not guilty, all counts: Violation of a 209A Restraining Order, Threats to Kill, Plymouth County District Court (Comm. v. GT)
• Not guilty, all counts: Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon, Assault and Battery, Boston Municipal Court, West Roxbury (Comm. v. WR)
• Not guilty, all counts: Assault and Battery and 209A Abuse Prevention Order Violation, Waltham District Court (Comm. v. DM)
• Not guilty, all counts: OUI Third Offense, Woburn District Court (Comm. v. NP)
• Not guilty, all counts: OUI, Concord District Court (Comm. v. LW)
• Not guilty, all counts: Operating to Endanger, Boston Municipal Court (Comm. v. SD)

Practice Focus

Attorney Serpa represents people charged across the full range of Massachusetts criminal offenses, including:

• Clerk-magistrate (show-cause) hearings under M.G.L. c. 218, s. 35A
• OUI and operating under the influence under M.G.L. c. 90, s. 24, including breath-test litigation, field sobriety test defense, and marijuana OUI
• Domestic violence charges under M.G.L. c. 265, s. 13M, and 209A and 258E order matters
• Sex offenses, including rape, indecent assault and battery, and AI-generated imagery offenses
• Firearms offenses under M.G.L. c. 269, s. 10
• Drug charges under M.G.L. c. 94C
• Larceny, shoplifting, and theft offenses
• Sealing and expungement of criminal records

Defense begins with the constitutionality of the stop, the search, and the seizure that produced the evidence, whether the alleged facts constitute a criminal offense and jurisdictional review. With much regularity, cases can be ended at the clerk-magistrate stage before a record exists. See the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor for how the charge level shapes that strategy.

Clients With Professional, Academic, and Immigration Exposure

A Massachusetts criminal charge often threatens more than the criminal penalty. For licensed professionals, the arraignment CORI entry can trigger licensing-board reporting before the case is resolved, and most boards treat a CWOF as a conviction. For college and university students, a charge opens a criminal case and a campus disciplinary or Title IX proceeding at the same time. For non-citizens and visa holders, a disposition that looks minor in state court can carry immigration consequences. In each of these situations the defense begins with preventing the arraignment, not managing its aftermath.

Offices

Serpa Law Office maintains two locations and a 24-hour consultation line at (617) 936-0201.

• 20 Park Plaza, Suite 400A, Boston, MA 02116, steps from the Green Line at Arlington Street Station
• 500 Victory Road, Suite 400A, Quincy, MA 02171, near Quincy District Court and the Red Line

To discuss a case, contact Serpa Law Office or read client reviews.

Frequently Asked Questions About Serpa Law Office