Zeytoonian Center Events
May
- May, 2011
Zeytoonian Lectures on CL at Suffolk Law School
The use of the Collaborative Law approach to resolving disputes was the focus of a lecture by Michael Zeytoonian, lawyer, mediator and ombudsman at Suffolk Law School in Boston on April 19. Zeytoonian was invited as a guest lecturer by Professor Lisle Baker to present to his mediation class.
"Collaborative Law is a great process because it incorporates both the analytical and advocacy work of litigation with the listening and negotiating skills of mediation and coaching," Zeytoonian noted. "But as trusted legal advisors focused on responding to our clients' needs, we must explain the different options to our clients before we suggest or design the best approach for the specific needs and circumstances of that client and one that is responsive to that particular situation," he stressed.
Beginning with an overview of the many different approaches that are part of the spectrum of dispute resolution, Zeytoonian explained how each one worked and where they sat on the dispute resolution spectrum in relation to each other. He also discussed the several different approaches and uses of mediation and the different times it is used, distinguishing between early intervention mediation and later mediation and pointing out pros and cons of each. From the most risky, invasive, costly and potentially damaging approaches of litigation and arbitration to the more preventive and proactive tools like preventive law, ombuds services and good anticipatory contract law, Zeytoonian stressed the need for lawyers to educate clients on all their options before recommending one to them.
"As law students, we are all taught the adversarial process and learn the vital analytical skills that go with that process. But we should not predetermine what approach we will take with our clients just because it's the process we know or like; it has to be the right fit for the parties involved and the circumstances of the dispute," Zeytoonian advised.
Focusing the lecture on Collaborative Law, he discussed how it originated in 1990 by one lawyer, how it works and how it can be utilized in several different kinds of disputes - employment, business, family, community, business succession, construction, probate situations, to name a few.
Zeytoonian Lectures on CL at New England Law Boston
The use of the Collaborative Law approach to resolving disputes was the focus of a lecture by Michael Zeytoonian, lawyer, mediator and ombudsman at New England Law Boston on April 12. Zeytoonian was invited as a guest lecturer by Professor Dawn Effron to present to her Negotiation class.
Beginning with an overview of the many different approaches that are part of the spectrum of dispute resolution, Zeytoonian explained how each one worked and where they sat on the dispute resolution spectrum in relation to each other. From the most risky, invasive, costly and potentially damaging approaches of litigation and arbitration to the more preventive and proactive tools like preventive law, ombuds services and good anticipatory contract law, Zeytoonian stressed the need for lawyers to educate clients on all their options before recommending one to them.
"Collaborative Law is a great process because it incorporates both the analytical and advocacy work of litigation with the listening and negotiating skills of mediation and coaching," Zeytoonian noted. "But as good as some of these approaches are, as counselors focused on satisfying the needs and interests of our clients, we must walk our clients through the options and then choose or design the best approach for the specific needs and circumstances of that client and one that is responsive to that particular situation," he stressed.
"As lawyers, we should not predetermine what approach we will take with our clients just because it's the process we do the most or like most; it has to be the right fit for the parties involved and the circumstances of the dispute," Zeytoonian advised. He then focused on Collaborative Law, how it originated, how it works and how it can be utilized in several different kinds of disputes - employment, business, family, community, business succession, construction, probate situations, to name a few. A vigorous question and answer session followed the lecture, including questions on ombuds work, differences between mediation and Collaborative Law, and how to develop a dispute resolution practice.
April
- April, 2011
Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution to host its Spring 2011 - "Meet and Greet" receptions
The Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution is hosting a series of “Meet and Greet” noontime lunch and evening wine and cheese receptions at their Wellesley Hills, and Westborough offices for clients and colleagues. Guests will learn more about how the Center helps businesses and individuals avoid litigation through collaborative approaches to resolving business and personal disputes; sharing views, ideas and experiences with collaborative law; and network with others who have benefited from the collaborative process. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn more about the Center, its team of collaborative professionals—including attorneys, affiliated mediators, consultants and coaches; how the Center helps businesses and individuals resolve disputes in ways that are cost-effective and time-efficient and which minimize the drain on their resources and damage to their relationships; and what makes the Center different from traditional law firms or other providers of mediation or arbitration services.
To honor administrative professionals on the occasion of Administrative Professionals Week, clients and colleagues are invited to bring their administrative professionals. This is to recognize the importance of administrative professionals in a way that is more powerful than words alone - to share and exchange ideas with them, value their input, questions and suggestions.
Spring sessions will be held at the following locations and times.
- Tuesday, April 26, 4-6 PM - wine and cheese style, Wellesley Hills Office
- Thursday, April 28, noon-2 PM - lunch style, Wellesley Hills Office
- Wednesday, May 4, 4-6 PM, wine and cheese style, Westborough Office (conference center)
For more information and reservations, please contact Kathy Pecci at 781-489-2270 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 781-489-2270 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
October
- October, 2010
Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution hosted series of "Meet and Eat" receptions
The Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution recently hosted a series of “Meet and Eat” noontime lunch and evening wine and cheese receptions at their Wellesley Hills offices for over 50 clients and colleagues. The Center’s guests learned more about how the Center helps businesses and individuals avoid litigation through collaborative approaches to resolving business and personal disputes; shared views, ideas and experiences with collaborative law; and networked with others who had benefitted from the collaborative process. Attendees had the opportunity to learn more about the Center, its team of collaborative professionals—including attorneys, affiliated mediators, consultants and coaches; how the Center helps businesses and individuals resolve disputes in ways that are cost-effective and time-efficient and which minimize the drain on their resources and damage to their relationships; and what makes the Center different from traditional law firms or other providers of mediation or arbitration services. Center founder and director Michael Zeytoonian also provided a list of “Ten Ways to Avoid Litigation,” including some practical advice on using preventive law measures. All sessions included a lively question and answer session. The wide-ranging discussion covered questions such as:- How do the Center’s methods work?
- How is collaborative law different from mediation and arbitration?
- What is Integrated Dispute Resolution (IDR) and how do you decide which combination of dispute resolution processes to use for each individual situation?
- How do we approach a situation where one side wants to use the collaborative approach but the other side does not?
April
- April 18, 2010
Zeytoonian Lectures on Alternative Dispute Resolution and Collaborative Law at New England Law | Boston
“Utilizing the Spectrum of Dispute Resolution and Collaborative Law” is the focus of a series of lectures being provided to third year law students at New England Law | Boston (formerly New England School of Law) this spring by lawyer, mediator and ombudsman Michael Zeytoonian.
The lectures are being offered to graduating law students as part of a preparatory program NELB provides to help students transition into the practice of law and study for the bar exam this summer. Prof. Robert Coulthard, a NELB faculty member, teaches the program and invited Zeytoonian to lecture to five classes in March and April about the various options that alternative dispute resolution (ADR) offers, including Collaborative Law, mediation and preventive law.
“This is an opportunity for our graduating students to be exposed to some of the more progressive and cutting-edge work that is happening in dispute resolution today,” Prof. Coulthard noted. “It gives them a chance to hear from someone using these ADR processes in practice and ask questions about the practical and real applications of alternative dispute resolution methods like Collaborative Law, ombuds work and mediation,” he pointed out.
Zeytoonian, whose interest-based, settlement-oriented dispute resolution work has grown out of years of experience as a litigator, is the director of the Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution, LLC in Wellesley Hills, and Westborough, Mass. The Center offers many non-adversarial dispute resolution processes to parties who want to avoid litigation and its high costs, time inefficiency and collateral damage.
“Approaches like Collaborative Law, mediation and Integrated Dispute Resolution are designed to help the parties work with their legal counsel to resolve matters from the outset, by intention and design,” Zeytoonian explains to students. “When you develop long-term relationships with your business and individual clients, get to know them well and understand their needs, you want to avoid taking them down the litigation path if possible,” he states. “Most of the time, their needs and interests can be better met by utilizing a non-adversarial approach that keeps the control of both the process and the decision-making in their hands, and gives them the flexibility to come up with creative options for more productive resolution of their disputes,” Zeytoonian stresses.
“Most people, even most lawyers, are only familiar with mediation and arbitration,” Zeytoonian noted, “and often in the context of using them late in the litigation process.” He explained that the dispute resolution spectrum really begins with preventive law and good contract drafting, and includes early intervention methods like ombuds services, collaborative law and early mediation, all utilized before any litigation has been instituted. He also introduced a new concept called “Integrated Dispute Resolution,” or IDR, in which the parties and lawyers begin the settlement negotiation by jointly designing the dispute resolution process to meet the specific situation and circumstances of their dispute.
“Every dispute is different,” Zeytoonian explained, “so we’ve designed integrated dispute resolution with the built-in flexibility to be tailored for the unique circumstances, needs and bandwidth of the parties and their dispute, rather than force them into using a cookie cutter procedure which may not be the right fit for their needs. The goal of IDR is to satisfy the interests of the client.”
February
- February 18, 2010
SCORE hosts Presentation on Preventive and Collaborative Law
How can small businesses avoid disputes and what can they do to minimize the damage of the dispute when it arises? That was the topic for a presentation to SCORE Chapter #411, which serves small businesses and non-profit organizations in the Essex County, MA region. Michael Zeytoonian, Director of the Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution, LLC presented on this topic to the SCORE Chapter at its February 18, 2010 meeting in Danvers. MA.
SCORE, “Counselors to America’s Small Businesses”, is a national volunteer organization of retired executives who give of themselves by providing advice and consultation to small businesses and non-profits. It is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Zeytoonian offered a program entitled “Ten Ways to Prepare for, Prevent and Manage Disputes”. He provided practical and proactive suggestions for preventing situations from escalating into disputes, as well as non-adversarial, cost efficient ways to resolve the disputes when they arise. He urged the SCORE advisors to help their clients “build a line of preventive defenses with good policies, practices and preventive training” and “anticipate issues before they arise and address them in the company’s contracts and agreements.”
“Effective dispute management begins with preventive law and good contract drafting,” Zeytoonian noted, along with checking off with legal counsel before taking an action. He also suggested some proactive thinking to business clients and their advisors: “Think about the most common disputes and work your way back to where they typically begin, where the deeds of the disagreement are sown, and focus your efforts on that point,” Zeytoonian suggested.
SCORE members were curious about using Collaborative Practice to resolve business and employment disputes. Zeytoonian pointed out the many advantages of Collaborative Law for small business and non-profit organizations. “When preserving business relationships is important, when cost-efficiency and time efficiency and confidentiality matter, Collaborative Law is the preferred means of resolving a dispute,” he stated.
SCORE, founded in 1964 and first called “Service Corps of Retired Executives”, has 370 chapters throughout the United States and its territories, with 11,200 volunteers nationwide. (For more information about SCORE, visit its website at www.score.org.) Its members are retired executives from a variety of professional backgrounds who volunteer to lend their experience and talents to small businesses and non-profit organizations who need the wisdom of their business knowledge.
In responding questions about how to bring parties to using this process, Zeytoonian advised that “one important thing you can do in counseling business clients is to incorporate into their business agreements tiered dispute resolution clauses. In contractor agreements, employment agreements or other contracts, parties can include a provision to utilize non-adversarial methods like collaborative law or mediation first, then arbitration if the interest-based processes do not completely resolve the matter. You provide value to your clients when you help them take the preventive steps to keep them out of disputes,” Zeytoonian noted, “and give them the tools to utilize the most efficient and non-destructive processes available for resolving their disputes when they arise.”
2009
October
- October 16, 2009
Michael Zeytoonian to Participate in Multiple Events During International Academy of Collaborative Professionals 10th Anniversary Forum, October 22-25, 2009
The Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution, LLC is pleased to announce that Michael Zeytoonian, founder and director of the Center, will participate in multiple events during the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals’ (IACP) 10th Anniversary Networking and Educational Forum, to be held October 22-25 at the Minneapolis Marriott City Center in Minneapolis, Minn. The Forum is the most comprehensive conference in the field of Collaborative Law.
On Friday, October 23, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Zeytoonian will participate in a Civil Pre-Forum Institute, “Civil Collaborative Practice—Driving Toward the Tipping Point”. The Institute will look at what is driving the use of Collaborative Practice in civil cases, the keys to its success, the opportunities for broader use and the challenges that are being overcome by civil Collaborative Practitioners.
The session will open with a presentation by Kathy Bryan, Executive Director of the International Institute for Conflict Resolution and Prevention in New York. She will be joined in a panel discussion by Michael Zeytoonian, as well as Dallas, Texas-based Collaborative consultant, coach and mental health professional Vicki James. Patricia Mallon, Past President of the Association of Collaborative Professionals of Ireland will moderate the panel. The Institute’s afternoon session will offer intensive, interactive training, working to resolve a hypothetical case using the Collaborative Process.
On Saturday, October 24, from 9:00 a. m. to 10:30 a. m., Zeytoonian will co-present a Forum Workshop with lawyer and mediator R. Paul Faxon, Of Counsel to the Archstone Law Group in Waltham Mass., and The New Law Center, LLC in Cambridge, Mass., and economist Fred Baird, a Principal at Wellesley, Mass.-based Aurora Financial Advisors and an affiliated Expert/Consultant with the Zeytoonian Center.
The workshop, “Two Rivers Converge in Collaborative Practice,” is designed for civil Collaborative Practitioners. Using interactive exercises, it will examine how, in Collaborative Practice, the skill sets of the litigator, the transactional attorney and the independent neutral expert are transformed in a way that best serves the Collaborative process.
From 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 24, Zeytoonian will facilitate a Civil Roundtable with Chelmsford, Mass.-based mediator and collaborative family lawyer Lynda Robbins. The Roundtable will combine reports and updates on the “state of the movement,” and will feature a special presentation by Kathy Bryan, Executive Director of the International Institute of Conflict Prevention and Resolution.
For more information about the IACP’s 10th Anniversary Networking and Educational Forum or to register, please visit www.collaborativepractice.com.
September
- September 25, 2009
Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution Founder Michael Zeytoonian presented
“Starting a Collaborative Practice” at Civil Collaborative Law SymposiumMichael Zeytoonian, founder and director of the Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution, LLC, shared the experience he has gained in handling collaborative business cases and establishing his collaborative practice as a featured speaker at the First Annual Civil Collaborative Law Symposium on Friday, September 25 at the Belo Mansion in Dallas, Texas. The Symposium was sponsored by the Dallas Bar Association Collaborative Law Section and the Global Collaborative Law Council.
Michael participated in a round table to discuss “Collaborative Growth on the East Coast, West Coast, and Texas” with Kevin Fuller, JD, Dallas, Texas; Kathy Clark, PhD, JD,MAM, San Francisco, California; and moderator Larry Maxwell, JD, Dallas, Texas.
Michael also presented a workshop on “Starting a Collaborative Practice,” where he discussed topics including developing a business plan, finances, staffing, philosophical considerations, marketing and branding, and fee arrangements. The session included several interactive exercises and opportunities for questions and answers.
July
- July 16, 2009
Dr. David Hall Appointed President of University of the Virgin Islands
The Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution and the Boston Theological Institute recently held a reception in honor of Dr. David Hall, to celebrate Dr. Hall’s recent appointment as the new President of the University of the Virgin Islands. Prof. Hall, a member of the Zeytoonian Center team of experts in the areas of ethics and diversity, had a distinguished career at Northeastern University School of Law, where he has served as former Dean of the Law School, Provost and Senior VP for Academic Affairs and law professor.
From left, Marilyn Braithwaite-Hall; Dr. David Hall; Zeytoonian Center Director Michael Zeytoonian; Dr. Rodney L. Peterson, Executive Director, Boston Theological Institute; and Thomas W. Porter, Jr., Director of the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology. The reception was held at the Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre.
June
- June 25, 2009
Attorneys Zeytoonian and Faxon Discuss Benefits of Collaborative Law for Small Businesses and Non-Profits at SCORE Boston Meeting
Presentation by Michael Zeytoonian and R. Paul Faxon
April
- Clark University College of Professional and Continuing Education
Worcester, Massachusetts
Utilizing Collaborative Law in Non-Profit Organization Civil Disputes
Presentation by Michael Zeytoonian
March
- Northeastern University School of Law
Boston, Massachusetts
The ADR Spectrum and the Emerging Use of Collaborative Law in Civil Disputes
Lecture by Michael Zeytoonian.
January
- Collaborative Divorce Holland
Woudschoten/Zeist, The Netherlands
Interdisciplinary Collaborative Training
Three-day training by Cathy Heenan and Rita Pollak.
2008
November
- MetroWest Bar Association
Framingham, Massachusetts
Collaborative Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution
Presentation by Michael Zeytoonian.
October
- International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP)
New Orleans, Louisiana
Moving Through Impasse
Pre-forum Institute, by Rita Pollak and Cathy Heenan
Civil Collaborative Law Roundtable
Michael Zeytoonian and Lynda Robbins, Co-Chairs
Civil Collaborative Law
Pre-Forum Institute Panel Presentation by Douglas Reynolds
Restorative Justice and Collaborative Law, First Cousins in Dispute Resolution
Workshop presentation by Michael Hagelberg & Douglas Reynolds
Getting Past "Stuck"
Workshop presentation by Daniel Finn & Cathy Heenan.
June
- Maryland Bar Association, June, 2008 Annual Meeting
Ocean City, Maryland
Collaborative Law in Business Disputes
Workshop by Michael Zeytoonian and R. Paul Faxon.
