Is attorney required at home sale closing in Massachusetts?

First, congratulations on the imminent purchase of your new home.  I sympathize with your plight and do remember feeling very poor after my first home's closing.  The bank's attorney's fees, along with the cost of the mandatory title insurance policy, are usually the two biggest closing costs.  However, there is, in fact, a legal requirement that an attorney be present at all residential real estate closings in Massachusetts.  In fact, there is case law on point.

In Real Estate Bar Association of Massachusetts v. National Real Estate Information Services, 459 Mass. 512 (2011), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that the "closing or settlement of real property conveyances requires not only the presence but the substantive participation of an attorney on behalf of the mortgage lender, and that certain services connected with real property conveyances constituted the practice of law in Massachusetts." The case was, as you may have guessed, concerned with the question of what constitutes the practice of law in Massachusetts.  Given that the Court determined unequivocally that real estate closing do involve the practice of law, the answer to your question is: no, a bank employee (unless an attorney) cannot fill that roll.  And let's face it, the bank is happy to rely on the common practice of shoving these costs on to the plate of the buyer.  Sorry about that.  Good luck with your closing.