Generally, an attorney may not ask leading questions during direct examination. According to Section 611(c) of the Massachusetts Guide to Evidence:
Leading questions should not be used on direct examination except as necessary to develop the witness’s testimony.
However, leading questions are typically permissible during cross examination and
when a party calls a hostile witness, an adverse party, or an officer or agent of an adverse corporate party, or an investigator appointed under G. L. c. 119, § 21A
As with most things at trial, the judge has a great amount of discretion when determining what’s permissible:
We have held in many opinions that the decision whether to allow leading questions “should be left for the most part to the wisdom and discretion of the trial judge instead of being restricted by the mechanical operation of inflexible rules.
Guiffre v. Carapezza, 298 Mass. 458, 460
Additionally, many judges in Massachusetts require that when the subject of the cross-examination enters material not covered on direct, the attorney should no longer use leading questions.