ROANOKE, Va. — As the sixth-month anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre approaches, a lawyer representing 20 people killed or injured in the April shootings has began notifying the town and the state about possible lawsuits.

An attorney, Larry Spencer of Blacksburg Town, said he received notices yesterday from Peter Grenier, a personal injury lawyer in Washington, D.C., of possible lawsuits claiming negligence by the town and its employees.

A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office said it received notice yesterday from Mr. Grenier’s law firm of a possible lawsuit on behalf of an injured student, Kevin Sterne. Tucker Martin said he could not say whether it was a possible lawsuit against Virginia Tech or the state itself.

No lawsuits have yet been filed stemming from the shootings on the university’s Blacksburg campus, where mentally disturbed student Seung-Hui Cho killed two people in a dormitory and 30 in a classroom building before taking his own life.

The notice does not necessarily mean lawsuits will be filed, but such notification is needed by Tuesday, six months after the shootings, if lawsuits against a locality are to be filed in state court. A notice of a claim against Virginia Tech or the state must be filed within a year.