Cody, Christopher D.

Linda joined the firm in 2011 as a member of the Firm’s domestic relations practice.  She brings to the practice more than twenty years of experience in the probate and family courts in Massachusetts.

Linda’s practice is devoted exclusively to family law and probate litigation, including divorce, paternity, modification, contempt and guardianship cases, as well as will contests and other probate actions.  Her earlier tenure as an Assistant District Attorney in Middlesex County provided her with valuable trial and other courtroom experience, and the skills she acquired in that position have contributed to her reputation as a formidable trial attorney. She has tried multiple family law cases involving complex financial issues, including valuation of closely held corporations, as well as highly contested custody cases.  Her probate litigation experience includes successfully representing a contestant in a will contest in the Middlesex Probate Court following a ten-day trial.  Linda has also had experience handling appeals in the state’s appellate courts. She successfully argued the case of Akinci v. Unal, a precedent-setting Appeals Court case concerning personal jurisdiction over foreign residents in Massachusetts divorce litigation, and she wrote the winning brief in the case of JS v. CC a precedent-setting case on the treatment of Subchapter S income in establishing child support orders.  While Linda has considerable skills trying cases in order to receive favorable results for her clients, she holds the view that most cases are better resolved through negotiation, rather than litigation, and she is well-versed and skilled in obtaining excellent results for her clients through settlement. 

Linda began her career at Hale and Dorr, one of the pre-eminent litigation firms in Boston, where she handled business, commercial and general litigation cases.  While there, she developed considerable negotiation and case preparation skills which she has utilized over her more than twenty-eight years of practice as an attorney, and as a family law partner with other Boston area firms, including Warner & Stackpole, Casner & Edwards and Atwood & Cherny.  She has headed up the family law departments at several of her prior affiliations, and has served as a mentor to several young lawyers who have developed into skilled family law practitioners in the Boston area.

Linda is well-known in the legal community for her skills as a teacher in the field of family law.  She is a frequent lecturer for Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) as well as a member and former co-chair of MCLE’s Family Law Curriculum Committee, where she helped to organize and chair multiple seminars on topics pertaining to family law.  She has also been a guest lecturer at Boston College Law School and Suffolk University Law School, and has participated as panelist at numerous seminars at Suffolk University, and for the Massachusetts, Boston and Barnstable Bar Associations.  Linda is a member of the Steering Committee for the Family Law Section of the Boston Bar Association. She served as a member of the Committee’s subcommittees on continuing legal education and legislation, where she has helped shape legislation on many timely issues in the field of family law.

Linda is a 1980 summa cum laude graduate of St. Anselm College, where she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Politics and graduated at the top of her class with a perfect grade point average.  While in college, she was a National Merit Scholar and was awarded the prestigious Harry S. Truman Scholarship upon her graduation. Linda is a 1984 magna cum laude graduate of Boston College Law School, where she served as Managing Editor of the Boston College Law Review and published an article on the domestic relations exception to diversity jurisdiction.  She was inducted into the Order of the Coif, an honor society reserved for those students graduating in the top of their law school class. She has been recognized in Boston Magazine’s publication of Super Lawyers in Massachusetts and New England, a distinction achieved by only a small percentage of the state’s practicing attorneys.

Linda is admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts, as well as the District Court of Massachusetts, the First Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court.