David J. Grimaldi, P.C.

Focus and practice areas

Criminal defense in Massachusetts state and federal courts is the whole of what David J. Grimaldi, P.C. does. The firm works out of Cambridge, with a second office in Boston.

The case list the site publishes is long for a one-attorney office. It covers drug crimes, sex offenses, violent crimes, domestic violence and restraining orders, firearm offenses, murder and other homicide charges, OUI and driving offenses, white collar crimes, computer and internet crimes, federal offenses, and clerk-magistrate hearings.

Each of those sits inside the same body of law, so the breadth reads as depth in one field. A lawyer who handles restraining orders and homicide charges is working the same courthouses, the same rules of evidence, the same prosecutors.

Work outside the criminal courts

The firm also takes misconduct proceedings in educational and professional settings. That includes college and university discipline cases and Title IX matters.

This pairing makes practical sense. A student facing a campus disciplinary board may be facing a criminal charge over the same incident, and the two proceedings run on different rules with different consequences. Handling both under one roof keeps one lawyer across the full picture.

Clerk-magistrate hearings deserve a mention on their own. These are the early Massachusetts proceedings that decide whether a criminal complaint issues at all. Getting a case resolved at that stage keeps a charge off the record entirely, and it is the kind of work a defense lawyer with local court experience knows to prioritize.

Who does the work

David J. Grimaldi is the attorney behind the firm. He grew up in South Boston and Dorchester and graduated from Boston College Law School in 2007.

His first seven years of practice were at the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the Massachusetts state public defender office. He worked out of the Brockton, Salem, and Boston offices during that period.

In my opinion this is the part of the profile that carries the most weight. Public defender work in Massachusetts means a high volume of cases across several counties, tried in front of many judges, in a role where the lawyer rarely gets to choose which files land on the desk. Seven years of that produces courtroom time that a lawyer in private practice would take considerably longer to accumulate.

The three-office rotation matters too. Brockton, Salem, and Boston are different courts with different local practices. A defense lawyer who has worked all three arrives at an unfamiliar county courthouse with a working sense of how it runs.

How the firm is set up

Grimaldi opened his own office in Cambridge in 2014. That gives the firm eleven years of operation as an independent practice as of this writing.

The Boston office adds a second point of access. Cambridge and Boston sit on opposite sides of the Charles, and the two locations put the firm close to the Middlesex and Suffolk County court systems where much of its work happens.

A solo structure has direct consequences for a client. The lawyer named on the sign is the lawyer at counsel table, and the person who takes the initial call is the person who tries the case. For criminal defense, where trust between client and counsel shapes what a lawyer is able to work with, that continuity is a real feature of the arrangement.

Consultations are offered in Spanish as well as English. In a criminal matter this affects whether a client can explain what happened in their own words.

What the professional record shows

Grimaldi sits on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He also belongs to the Massachusetts Bar Association and the Boston Bar Association.

The MACDL board seat carries more information than the other two. Bar association membership is open and common. A board position at the state criminal defense bar organization means colleagues in the same field elected him to help run it, and it puts him in the group that tracks changes in Massachusetts criminal law and comments on legislation affecting defendants.

As a reviewer, that is the credential worth flagging for anyone comparing criminal defense options in the Boston area. It reflects standing among other defense lawyers, which is a different signal from anything a firm can write about itself.

Who this firm fits

The profile suits someone facing a criminal charge in Greater Boston who wants a single experienced lawyer handling the file directly. It also suits a student or professional facing a campus or licensing proceeding, particularly where a criminal charge runs alongside it.

Someone charged federally will find the firm lists federal offenses among its practice areas. Federal criminal practice runs on separate rules and separate sentencing guidelines, and it is worth confirming during an initial conversation how much of that work the firm has handled.

What to ask about

Anyone contacting the firm should ask directly about experience with their specific charge type. The published practice list is broad, and a prospective client is entitled to know how many cases of a given kind the lawyer has tried.

The same applies to trial posture. Most criminal cases resolve short of trial, and a client should understand early how their lawyer approaches that decision.

What the record supports is straightforward. Grimaldi has practiced law in Massachusetts since 2007, spent seven of those years as a public defender across three court districts, has run his own criminal defense office since 2014, and holds an elected seat on the board of the state association of criminal defense lawyers.