Massachusetts: Appeals

If you need more time to file your brief in the Appeals Court, you can use this interview to ask for an enlargement of time.

This interview will help you tell the court:

• the reason you need to ask for more time,
• the date by which you are able to file your brief by, within the court guidelines, and
• create a complete certificate of service.

A copy of the motion must be served on all other parties to the appeal.

If a judge has given your landlord the right to evict you, you can use this interview to appeal or ask for a stay (temporary delay) in your eviction.

It will help you make a motion for the appeals court and a notice of appeal that will be filed with the trial court. It can also make a request for a fee waiver (affidavit of indigency).

The motion is filed with the Appeals Court and can be efiled.

Use this interview if you would like to file a motion with the Appeals Court not listed elsewhere on this page. For example:

• Motion for leave to file supplemental appendix
• Motion for leave to file sur-reply brief
• Motion to compel assembly of the record

This interview helps someone in Massachusetts create a Civil Appeal Entry Form.

This form is only for civil appeals and is used to docket a civil appeal under Mass. R. A. P. 10(a).

If you need the Appeals Court to take a look at your case again you can use this interview to create a motion asking for a reconsideration and or modification. This form can also help you serve your motion to the other party and help you request an interpreter if you need one.

This interview makes a motion to stay in the Massachusetts Appeals Court.

A motion to stay asks the Appeals Court to stop the enforcement of a decision by another judge. It makes it so you can keep everything as-is, without paying money or having another consequence, until the appeals court judge can decide if the trial court judge made a mistake.

When a judge decides to stop a decision, it is called a stay of the judgment.

You can use this motion to make sure that you are not hurt by the trial court judge's decision during the time that it takes for the Appeals Court to listen to your case.

If you are asking the court to pause an eviction case, you should use the Appeal or Stay Your Eviction interview instead.

This interview will let you directly send the completed motion to the Appeals Court by email.

If you would like a single justice of the Appeals Court to overrule a decision made by the trial court judge that is not yet a final judgment of the court, use this form.

You can use this form to ask the Appeals Court to review the decision for mistakes in the law or abuse of discretion. You must provide a legal reason that the judge's decision was wrong.

You can only seek review of an order of the trial court within 30 days of the trial court judge's decision.