Commonwealth of Mass: Woburn District Court

Just wanted to add a few details to Eric’s thorough review:
1. Park in the second lot where there are no 4 hour parking limit signs.
2. There is a Coke and junk food vending machine.
3. There was a surge protector that I used the entire time to charge my computer (the protector had 8 plugs)
4. Jurors can enter 30 minutes before the building opens but no one else can. I saw some jurors waiting outside when they didn’t need to.
5. They canceled the 10 am food truck because we were in the courtroom and then did not reschedule it so bring a snack.
6. There is water to drink.
I went through one jury selection (for one trial, did not serve) and by 12:50 they told us there were no more trials and that we could leave.

Recently got called here for jury duty, and I’m adding some tips here because the information they send to jurors is a bit limited:
–Make sure you know which Woburn court house you’re going to. There’s a superior courthouse about a mile away and a couple of people came to ours (the district court) when they’d been called to jury duty for the superior one.
–Parking is easy, across the street from the court house; they’ll send you instructions. Getting there by MBTA is a bit more of a pain, but it’ll get you there. Use google maps to find a route.
–You will need to go through a security screening as you enter the building, but it’s no biggie.
–Laptops are allowed, but they do not have wi-​fi.
–Cellphones /​smartphones are allowed, on silent mode (but turned OFF if you get called into the court room).
–Make sure your electronic devices are fully charged, because electrical outlets are scarce in the jury pool room.
–Bring a book or other reading material; you’ll have plenty of time to kill, whether you get called for a jury or not.
–Bring a sandwich or snack. You’ll get hungry if you’re there as long as I was (although they do have a lunch break at 1, and a food truck visits around 10 a.m.).
Overall it’s not bad. When I was there, we ended up waiting in the jury pool room until 1 p.m., at which time the judge came in and told us that they wouldn’t be having any jury trials that day. Sometimes this decision gets made much earlier, so you may get out sooner if they don’t need a jury that day.
Also, as they told us, this is district court, so even if you do get called to serve on a jury, it’s unlikely that you’ll be there for more than a day or two (usually one day is the average, according to the court officer).

Court house services
* Burlington
* North Reading
* Reading
* Stoneham
* Wilmington
* Winchester
* Woburn
Went for a traffic ticket. Guard refused to speak to me, just pointed at random things. I asked where I was supposed to go and got redirected several times (sometimes after waiting in line at some desks), somehow the employees didn’t know where things were?
Overall most employee’s were nice, but just didn’t know much about their establishment. FWIW, as of 9÷01÷07 the traffic violations were one floor up from the security entrance.
I gave it an extra star because I won ;-)