Evans/Cutler Attorneys

Richard M. Evans has practiced law in western Massachusetts for over 35 years, concentrating in the representation of non-profit state and regional land conservation organizations. As a Main Street practitioner, he has represented many business owners, buyers and sellers of residential and commercial real estate, litigants, estate fiduciaries and clients seeking permits or other indulgences from local and municipal boards.For nearly his entire professional career, he has participated prominently in the marijuana legalization effort. In 1981, he authored the first comprehensive regulation/taxation plan to be introduced as legislation in Massachusetts, upon which bills were modeled and introduced in other states. It was re-introduced for the 2011-12 legislative session as H1371, An Act to Tax and Regulate the Cannabis Industry. As a member of NORML’s board of directors, he was the moving force behind NORML’s adoption of the Principles of Responsible Cannabis Use. His numerous op-eds and other writings have helped shape and propel the counter-prohibitionist narrative.

Michael D. Cutler has practiced law in Massachusetts for more than 35 years, focusing in criminal defense, civil litigation, and state and municipal administrative proceedings. He has served as a town planning board member, evaluating applications for real estate development permits; he has represented applicants seeking such permits and others, including liquor licenses. He is state-certified to represent prisoners and patients in state criminal post-conviction and mental health proceedings, to train and re-certify private lawyers who accept such appointments, and is state-certified to represent prisoners, convicted of murder at trial, in post-conviction proceedings in state and federal court. As a 20-year member of the National Legal Committee of NORML, Attorney Cutler is well connected with colleagues in states that protect medical marijuana. He has consulted to a successful cannabis dispensary licensee in a neighboring state overcoming the threat of federal interference. After practicing in Boston for more than thirty years, he recently relocated his office to Northampton, maintaining a Boston presence for clients in Eastern Massachusetts.