Zeytoonian Lectures on Alternative Dispute Resolution and Collaborative Law at New England Law | Boston
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.”
