Christopher M. Welch

Founder and Principle Attorney

Chris began in a corporate practice in downtown Boston in 1981 but soon realized that needed his practice to have a more personal connection to his own community and to his clients’ lives. He began his own general practice in downtown Newburyport just two blocks from the home he and his wife had just bought. In 1985 he formed the firm of Bolick & Welch with Doug Bolick. The firm became Law Office of Christopher M. Welch when Doug left to reduce the scope of his practice in 2000. The two remain “of counsel” to each other’s firms. By then the practice had become concentrated on matters of real estate law. But the focus remained maintaining a very high level of quality of service to the client – a level of quality not often found out in the suburbs and almost never in the hurly-burly, deadline driven and precision requiring world of conveyancing (buying, selling and refinancing of real estate).

Chris studied at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, one of the most renowned institutions of higher learning in the world, graduating in 1977. He returned for Law School, studying Common Law, based (almost identical to American law) on the centuries old principles of English Common Law. But McGill required all Common Law students to take the foundational courses in Civil Law (based on the old French Napoleonic Code). It was an infinitely valuable education in figuring out that there are many different approaches to solving a problem.

Chris has lived in Newburyport since 1982 and, with his wife Barbara raised three boys, all of whom went to Newburyport public schools. He served four terms on the Newburyport City Council and was active in the group that was fighting to preserve the waterfront and the old fire station. He represented the group in the lawsuit that was won in the Supreme Judicial Court, saving the firehouse from commercial development. He later served many years on the Board of what became the Firehouse Center for the Arts.