The John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse was built in 1998 as headquarters for the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Named in honor of John Joseph Moakley, a Massachusetts congressman of thirty years, the courthouse sits on Fan Pier, a beautiful waterfront site with a spectacular view of Boston Harbor.  Designed to symbolically reflect the law itself, the Moakley U.S. Courthouse is simultaneously formal and welcoming; detached and connected; historical and contemporary. It is intended to synthesize powerful ideas about citizenship and law into a grand public building.  

The building houses twenty-five courtrooms for the U.S. District Court and two courtrooms for the U.S. Court of Appeals, as well as forty judges’ chambers, a law library, the United States Attorney’s office, and the United States Marshals Services' Boston headquarters.  

For directions, maps, and hours of operation, please click here.