How Much Does a Bankruptcy Cost in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts carries 3 rows — simple, $1,100–$2,700 at $175–$315/hr over 3-4 months; moderate, $3,150–$6,300 at $200–$375/hr over 3-5 years; complex, $3,700–$9,900 at $230–$460/hr over 3-5 years — on 5 shared citations. Those figures put it in the top quarter of the table.

$4,400 is a median, not the middle of the band — $1,250 above the $3,150 floor, $1,900 under the $6,300 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 47.

Massachusetts ranks 2nd of 47 tracked states for a bankruptcy, inside the highest-cost quarter of the table. The gap to the $3,600 midpoint is $800 — 22% — and only 1 states record a higher median.

Hawaii ($4,400) and Connecticut ($4,350) bracket Massachusetts inside a $50 window — narrow enough that 2nd is close to arbitrary.

6 tracked states — Hawaii, Connecticut, Vermont, California among them — record a median within three percent of Massachusetts's $4,400. The figure sits in the densest part of the bankruptcy distribution, where a rank change of several rows costs only a few hundred dollars.

Hourly rate does not explain this state's position. At $290 an hour Massachusetts is only 9th of 47 on rate, yet 2nd on total bankruptcy cost — the totals reflect billed hours accumulating, not an unusually high rate.

The rows within ten percent are lopsided: 10 below Massachusetts against 0 above. $0 up or $50 down moves Massachusetts a row, so a downward revision would cost the state far more places than an equivalent upward one would gain — the 2nd position is propped up by a thin bankruptcy field above it and a crowded one beneath.

Climbing five places would mean passing Hawaii and adding $0 to the $4,400 recorded here.

Five places down means passing under Connecticut, Vermont, California, New York, Virginia: $100.

$0 short of Hawaii ($4,400), $2,050 clear of Kentucky ($2,350).

At $290 an hour, the $4,400 median represents about 15 hours of attorney time — a matter measured in days of work, not weeks. The peer median is 14 hours, so 1 more hours of work sit behind the Massachusetts figure than behind the typical state's.

The escalation is comparatively shallow on hours. A complex bankruptcy costs 3.8x a simple one in Massachusetts, but the implied workload only rises 2.6x — 7 hours at $230 becomes 18 hours at $345 — meaning the senior-rate premium of 1.5x carries an unusually large share of the increase.

In dollars the Massachusetts moderate band is wide: $3,150 to $6,300, a $3,150 range, $600 wider than the peer-median band of $2,550. End to end that is 11 hours at $290.

By implied hours Massachusetts falls to 7th of 47 at 15 hours, 5 places below its 2nd on cost — the bankruptcy total arriving on less recorded work.

14% up the $3,150–$6,300 band sits the $3,600 table midpoint, buying 12 hours at $290 against the 15 the local bankruptcy median implies — 3 hours apart.

$290 an hour puts Massachusetts between Maryland ($290) and New Hampshire ($290) — not the bankruptcy cost pairing.

4 other states record exactly $290 — District of Columbia, Maryland, New Hampshire, Rhode Island among them — so rate is a coarse instrument in this bankruptcy table.

$4,400 buys 19 hours at $230, 15 at $290, 13 at $345.

Rank is not stable across the tiers, and the direction matters. Massachusetts runs 14th at the simple tier, 2nd at moderate, 3rd at complex of 47 — it climbs 11 places as the matter gets harder. Straightforward bankruptcy work is recorded at ordinary prices here; contested work is not.

$1,650 is 14th of 47 on a straightforward bankruptcy, under Colorado ($1,650) and over New York ($1,650), $150 over the $1,500 tier midpoint.

$6,200 is 3rd of 47 once contested, between Washington ($6,350) and New Jersey ($6,200), $1,100 off the $5,100 tier midpoint.

$450 separates the simple ceiling of $2,700 from the moderate floor of $3,150, so the first escalation is a clean break, while the moderate and complex bands overlap from $3,700 upward. The expensive end of a routine bankruptcy and the cheap end of a contested one are the same money in Massachusetts.

$1,650 drops Massachusetts to 14th of 47 on straightforward matters, 12 below its moderate position and $150 (10%) over the $1,500 tier midpoint.

7 implied hours at $230: 47% of the moderate tier's 15, over 3-4 months.

Colorado ($1,650) and New York ($1,650) bracket it — a $0 window.

6 states sit within three percent of the $1,650 here, against 6 at the moderate row.

$6,200 drops Massachusetts to 3rd of 47 on contested matters, 1 below its moderate position and $1,100 (22%) over the $5,100 tier midpoint.

18 implied hours at $345: 120% of the moderate tier's 15, over 3-5 years.

Washington ($6,350) and New Jersey ($6,200) bracket it — a $150 window.

4 states sit within three percent of the $6,200 here, against 6 at the moderate row.

In Massachusetts a bankruptcy is 6th of 8 at $4,400, between Personal Injury and Real Estate Closing. At 41% of Criminal Defense ($10,800).

The state does not rank uniformly. Massachusetts is 2nd of 47 for Bankruptcy but 18th for Criminal Defense, a 16-place spread across the matter types tracked here, so its 2nd on bankruptcy says little about what the other lines cost.

The spread across practice areas is wide. Divorce runs 25% above its own midpoint, while Personal Injury runs 2% above its own midpoint — 23 percentage points apart. A single "Massachusetts is expensive" or "Massachusetts is inexpensive" claim would be wrong for at least one of the matter types tracked here.

The practice areas sit unusually close together in Massachusetts — the largest tracked median is 4.6x the smallest, against 5.1x for the typical state — so one figure travels further across matter types here than it would elsewhere.

7 of 8 matter types rank Massachusetts in the upper third, 0 in the lower, 1 between; bankruptcy is 2nd.

That places the bankruptcy figure in the 98th percentile of the 47 states tracked here.

Simple tier. $1,650 ÷ $230 = about 7 hours, spread over 3-4 months at roughly $471 a month. The $2,750 step to the moderate tier is 8 more hours at that rate.

Work against price. $4,400 to $6,200 is a $1,800 step weighted toward price: 3 more hours at $290 is $870, but $345 across 18 hours adds $990 — 53% of it.

Borrowing the wrong row. Connecticut ($4,350) is $50 light, Hawaii ($4,400) is $0 heavy — but the $3,600 table midpoint is out by $800, 16x the neighbour error.

Contested against simple. At Massachusetts's own recorded figures, $6,200 buys 3.8 matters at the $1,650 simple median — or, counted in time, 18 implied hours against 7, a factor of 2.6 — the two ratios differing because the rate rises with the tier.