Fairlie

Dalton

Fairlie A. Dalton is a judge in the Massachusetts Housing Court. After graduating from Regis College in Weston, MA and Harvard Law School, she worked as a housing attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services for more than 22 years representing northeastern Massachusetts tenants in eviction cases in District, Housing and Superior Courts, in administrative proceedings before housing authorities and government agencies, and in Sanitary Code enforcement cases. Before being appointed to the bench in 2014, she served for 8 years as the first assistant clerk-magistrate at the Northeast Housing Court. Upon her mandatory retirement in March 2020 as the first justice of the Northeast Housing Court, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court appointed her as a recall judge for the Housing Court. She now serves in Housing Court divisions throughout the state and chairs the Housing Court’s Post Pandemic Planning Committee charged with designing court procedures to address post-moratorium eviction cases. Judge Dalton is a past member of the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission and the Trial Court Race and Implicit Bias Advisory Committee and is a past president of the Lawrence Bar Association. Throughout her legal career, she has been an instructor for Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, the Department of Mental Health, the Housing Court, and the Judicial Outreach Program. She has authored articles for MCLE on landlord-tenant law, discrimination, reasonable accommodation in housing, and housing court trial practice.