Melina Muñoz Turco, Esq.

Director of Community Engagement

Melina Muñoz Turco is Turco Legal’s Director of Community Engagement. In her role, Attorney Muñoz Turco serves as the primary liaison between the firm and the broader community. She leads our philanthropic efforts, seeks opportunities to collaborate with community organizations, and works to make legal information more accessible to the public.

Longstanding Commitment to Public Service

Attorney Muñoz Turco began her public service career as a legislative aide, first in the Boston City Council and then in the Massachusetts State Senate. As a legislative aide, she was most passionate about her constituent service work, through which she assisted City and Commonwealth residents in overcoming barriers to services.

Muñoz Turco later joined the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (“BARCC”) as the first statewide Forensic Legal Advocate. At BARCC, she served as the statewide expert on the forensics of sexual violence. She provided training and technical assistance to sexual assault/crisis providers, developed and implemented an outreach plan for provider trainings, and collaborated with agencies focused on issues relevant to the forensic needs of BARCC clients—such as law enforcement agencies and other area non-profits.

In addition to her work as a trainer and technical assistance provider, Muñoz Turco further provided forensic and legal advocacy services to BARCC clients. This work ultimately inspired her legal career.

A Public Interest Law Student & Attorney

Attorney Muñoz Turco attended Boston College Law School (“BCLS”) as a Public Service Scholar. At BCLS, she dedicated a significant amount of her time to public interest clinical work. Namely, she was a student attorney with both the BCLS Juvenile Rights Advocacy Clinic (“JRAP”) and the BCLS Immigration Clinic. Muñoz Turco documented her experience representing a JRAP client in a piece called ‘God Don’t Like Ugly’, which was featured in BC Law Magazine (find the article here).

During her law school summers, Attorney Muñoz Turco interned with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and the Boston Public Schools Office of Legal Advisor.

Upon graduation, Muñoz Turco joined the Central West Justice Center. There, she was a medical-legal partnership generalist. Her practice areas included, in part, immigration, education, and housing law. Later, she joined the Children’s Law Center of Massachusetts as an education/medical-legal partnership attorney, collaborating with the Massachusetts General Hospital-Chelsea Healthcare Center. Attorney Muñoz Turco subsequently joined the Boston Court Service Center (“CSC”) as a staff attorney. At the CSC, she provided accurate legal information, court form assistance, and appropriate referrals to pro se litigants, primarily in family law, housing, and small claims matters.

Actively Engaging in Our Community

Attorney Muñoz Turco remains enthusiastic about giving back to her community. She currently sits on the Board of the Massachusetts Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a social justice research and advocacy non-profit. She is also a member of the YWCA Greater Newburyport’s Racial Justice Committee and has volunteered for Project Sweet Peas, a national non-profit dedicated to supporting families of premature or sick infants.

Additionally, Muñoz Turco has worked to learn the basics of video production to promote community engagement and public interest causes. In 2022, she produced a video documenting the experiences of those reentering the community after incarceration in collaboration with the Reentry Working Group of the Criminal Justice Task Force at Northeastern University School of Law and the Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants Access to Justice Fund.

As part of her Massachusetts Bar Association (“MBA”) volunteer work, Attorney Muñoz Turco produced 22 short videos featuring practicing attorneys describing their MBA experiences and welcoming new attorneys to the association. In 2023, she won a Mass. Bar Volunteer Recognition Award for her work.

Attorney Muñoz Turco has also been integral in organizing the MBA’s Fall Festival and Run for Justice, featuring family-friendly activities and a fundraising walk/run benefiting nonprofits in Massachusetts. And, she’s been a participant in the MBA’s Tiered Community Mentoring Program, providing guidance to high school, college, and law school students.

She was selected as a 2023-24 Massachusetts Bar Association Leadership Academy fellow.

Attorney Muñoz Turco is the Co-Founder of JusticeApp, a free mobile app designed to help those with legal issues more easily navigate the court process.