About Polly
Polly Tatum has built a practice that combines courtroom experience, municipal work and private dispute resolution. She earned her J.D. from the Massachusetts School of Law in 1990. She later pursued graduate study in estate planning and elder law at Western New England University School of Law, completing an advanced degree in that subject.
Her early career included a role in municipal government. In 1995 she served as an Assistant City Solicitor for the City of Worcester. That position placed her inside municipal decision-making and exposed her to public law matters and local governance issues. Two years later she moved into private practice and to a leadership position. Since 1997 she has been CEO of the Law Office of Polly Tatum/Mediation Advantage Services, where she oversees both legal and mediation services.
Tatum’s professional affiliations trace a steady involvement in local and state bar organizations. She joined the Massachusetts State Bar in 1995 and maintains active membership. She has taken on leadership roles in the Worcester County Bar Association, serving as its president from 2011 to 2012. Those stints in bar leadership gave her recurring exposure to ethics, continuing legal education and the procedural questions that shape local legal practice.
Mediation and family dispute resolution have been recurring themes in her work. She is a current member of the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation and previously served on its board. Her firm name reflects that emphasis; she runs mediation services alongside her law practice. Those services often intersect with her estate planning and elder law practice, where conversations about capacity, guardianship and family negotiations arise.
Outside the law she has been active in civic life. She served as vice chair of the YMCA of Central Massachusetts from 2017 to 2020 and then as chair of the board from 2021 through 2023. Those leadership roles involved governance, fundraising and community program oversight.
Colleagues describe her as steady in mediation settings and thorough in estate work. Her career path mixes public-sector experience, bar leadership and private practice administration. She continues to combine legal representation with mediation services in her current practice, focusing on estate planning, elder law and family mediation.
