COHASSET — This small coastal town of 7,500 people spent almost $350,000 on legal fees last fiscal year — more than five times as much as other Massachusetts communities its size.

Cohasset’s legal expenses in fiscal 2012 — July 1, 2011, through June 30, 2012 — also exceeded the amounts spent by Hingham, Hull, and Scituate, its larger neighbors. For example, while Hingham has three times Cohasset’s population, the larger town spent $319,918 on legal bills in the same period that Cohasset shelled out $349,877 — about $46 per resident.