Our Team

The Zeytoonian Center team consists of our core staff, our Of Counsel Attorneys, our affiliated Mediators and our affiliated Expert/Consultants and Coaches. All of our attorneys and mediators are trained in Collaborative Law.

Michael A. Zeytoonian is the Founding Member of the Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution, and is a lawyer, mediator and ombudsman. He is a partner at Hutchings, Barsamian, Mandelcorn & Zeytoonian, LLP, in Wellesley Hills, MA and specializes in employment law, business law, negligence, special education law and consumer protection (Ch. 93A) law. He is admitted to practice in the state and federal district courts of Massachusetts and New York (Southern District) and the state of Connecticut.

He is currently the chairman of Massachusetts Bar Association Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Committee. He is a past President of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council and co-chairman of the Civil Practice Committee, member of the Massachusetts Bar Association, the New England Association for Conflict Resolution, the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals and the Special Needs Advocacy Network. He writes frequently on collaborative law and ADR and has trained lawyers in collaborative law around the U.S., Canada and Europe. He has lectured on ADR at Northeastern University School of Law, New England Law Boston, Suffolk University School of Law and Roger Williams University School of Law. He has presented on collaborative law in Maryland, Washington, D.C., New Hampshire, California, Minnesota, Texas, Atlanta, New Orleans, Toronto, Canada and Cork, Ireland.

He served as Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the Attorney General of the State of New York, as a deputy overseeing litigation in the State Counsel Bureau in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties and working on consumer advocacy cases. Prior to his work at the Attorney General’s Office, he was an Assistant County Attorney in the Westchester County (NY) Law Department, in the litigation and family court bureaus. His litigation work included cases in employment, labor, environmental, construction, administrative and tort law, and the prosecution of child abuse and neglect cases. His undergraduate education was at Boston College and Iona College, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree is history and education. He earned his J. D. from Pace University School of Law with a Certificate in Environmental Law in 1990.

Dawn Effron, Of Counsel, is a mediator and collaborative attorney devoted to helping organizations and individuals improve their effectiveness in negotiation and conflict resolution.  An attorney since 1983, Dawn’s litigation experience spans New York's premier medical malpractice firm (now named Kramer, Dillof, Livingston & Moore), NYS Department of Health's Bureau for Professional Medical Conduct and the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine.  She has negotiated multi-million dollar settlements and successfully tried more than thirty cases involving allegations of substandard medical care, fraud and patient abuse.  Among the cases Dawn handled at the Mass. Board of Medicine were the highly publicized 1994 chemotherapy overdoses at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and removal of the wrong kidney at Quincy Hospital. 
Dawn expanded her practice to include alternative dispute resolution and developed a mediation program for the Board of Registration in Medicine.  She has been retained by institutions, including the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, health care practices, courts, and others to mediate legal disputes involving health care and employment issues.  She has also been retained by Harvard School of Public Health, New York University, Viacom, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and others to provide individualized coaching and create customized programs that inculcate core negotiation and conflict resolution skills.

Dawn is an adjunct faculty member at New England Law Boston, teaching negotiation and a mediation clinic.  She serves as Co-Chair of the Boston Bar Association - Boston Municipal Court Alternative Dispute Resolution Task Force, which operates a pilot mediation program in Boston Municipal Court.   Dawn received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and her JD from Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.  She is admitted to practice in Massachusetts and New York.

Theodore M. Hess-Mahan, Of Counsel, practices at Hutchings, Barsamian, Mandelcorn & Zeytoonian, LLP as Of Counsel. He is trained in Collaborative Law, and concentrates his practice in civil litigation, in which he has represented businesses, individuals, institutions and governmental agencies in trial and appellate courts and administrative proceedings. He has litigated and negotiated settlements in numerous individual, class and derivative actions involving claims asserted under antitrust, civil rights, class actions, consumer protection, business and government contracts, disability, employment discrimination, health care, insurance, intellectual property, judgment enforcement, securities, tort & unfair business practice laws. He began his practice as a civil litigation attorney with Ropes & Gray LLP from 1991-1997 and was associated with the law firm of Shapiro Haber & Urmy LLP from 1997-2007.

Hess-Mahan is a former co-chair of the Boston Bar Association Class Action Committee and a former member of the BBA Litigation Section Steering Committee. He has lectured at legal seminars and published articles on class actions, securities, special education, and medical records privacy laws, and has been a guest lecturer on voting rights at the New England School of Law. Recently, he co-authored a chapter on depositions in class actions published in the Massachusetts Deposition Practice Manual (MCLE Supp. 2006). He served for 10 years as a voluntary pre-trial conferencer in civil cases in the Boston Municipal Court, meeting with the parties’ attorneys to assess case-readiness and to mediate discovery and other disputes. In addition to his professional activities, Hess-Mahan has been active in public service as an elected, at-large member of the Newton Board of Aldermen since 2003. Previously, he served as a member of the Newton Human Rights Commission, and is the former President of CAN-DO, a non-profit developer of affordable housing in Newton.

Mr. Hess-Mahan received his BA from Tufts University in 1981 and graduated at the top of his class at Suffolk University Law School in 1990, where he was lead articles editor of the law review and director of the Honorable Frank J. Donahue Lecture Series. From 1990-1991, he was a law clerk for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. He has been admitted to practice in Massachusetts, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Karen Argetsinger is one of our attorneys Of Counsel, and practices at Hutchings, Barsamian, Mandelcorn & Zeytoonian, LLP as Of Counsel. She is a mediator and collaborative attorney concentrating her practice in Family, Probate, Health, Employment and Elder Law.

Karen has had over sixteen years of legal background which included law firm experience at Hale and Dorr, LLP (currently Wilmer Hale) and Warner & Stackpole, LLP (currently Kirpatrick & Lockhart, LLP) along with experience as a law clerk and independent consultant. She was a judicial intern for over a year with the United States District Court Magistrate Honorable Judith Dein.

Karen received her Bachelor of Science at Tulane University in 1988 and her JD from Massachusetts School of Law in 2007. She is admitted to practice in Massachusetts and the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She is a member of the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council. She has a special interest in child advocacy and health policy and has worked to establish the John E. Lewy Foundation for Children’s Health (subsidiary of American Society of Pediatric Nephrology) and assists the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital with health/legal issues and creating guidelines.

Frederick T Baird, one of our affiliated experts/consultants, is a Principal with Aurora Financial Advisors, LLC in Wellesley, MA, an independent financial, investment and economic advisory firm. He provides economic and financial advice to commercial enterprises, ranging from large closely-held businesses to corporations, and has been a management consultant and expert witness for more than 25 years.

He specializes in areas such as contract negotiation, business advisory (including restructuring, reorganization, investment, and business improvement), dispute resolution including assessment of damages, and the provision of advice in the areas of management, business economics and business regulation.

A former professor of economics and operations research, Fred holds a BEng, BS and MS from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He was, until recently, an Executive Vice President of CRA International Inc, a US public company headquartered in MA that specializes in economic and financial advisory services, including the provision of expert testimony. Prior to this, he was the Head of Europe and the Middle East for CRA. He is trained in collaborative law practice and has acted as an international arbitrator.

Dr. David Hall , one of our affiliated experts/consultants in the areas of ethics and diversity, began his tenure as the fifth President of the University of the Virgin Islands on August 1, 2009. He was awarded a Distinguished University Professorship of Spirituality and Professionalism at UVI.

With a distinguished career as an educational administrator, Dr. Hall is also recognized as a preeminent scholar in the field of law. In 1993, when Dr. Hall was appointed Dean of the Northeastern University School of Law, he made history by being the first African-American to hold the position. His top priority as dean of the Law School was improving legal education and the ethical standards of the profession and he has called upon all law schools to be places “where the values and spiritual foundations of future lawyers are nurtured, challenged and systematically emphasized.” His two major contributions were in the area of diversity and Practice Oriented Education.

In a December 1995 Wall Street Journal article on the Northeastern School of Law, Harvard Law Professor Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. referred to Dr. Hall as “one of the most important leaders in legal education today.”

Dr. Hall was appointed Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Northeastern in July of 1998 and served in that capacity until July of 2002. During his tenure as the chief academic officer for Northeastern, Dr. Hall oversaw significant growth in the University’s external research funding, retention rate and overall academic standing.

Dr. Hall holds a bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University, where he was named an “all American” for his athletic and scholarly accomplishments. After graduating from Kansas State, he played professional basketball in Italy.  He holds both a doctorate of juridical science and an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School and received his juris doctorate from the University of Oklahoma, where he also earned a master’s degree in human relations.

Having taught law for more than 20 years in the law schools of the University of Mississippi and the University of Oklahoma, in addition to Northeastern, Dr. Hall has developed a unique perspective with regard to legal education and the ethical standards of the profession. Working to bridge the often-alienated worlds of law and the inner city, he was instrumental in the formation of Northeastern’s Urban Law and Public Policy Institute, which brought community activists, government representatives and academicians together to develop solutions to urban dilemmas.

Dr. Hall’s publications include works on civil rights, the U.S. Constitution and race, legal education, and social justice. He has authored a book on the intersection of law and spirituality, entitled The Spiritual Revitalization of the Legal Profession: A Search for Sacred Rivers, and lectures nationally on topics of social justice, leadership, diversity and spiritual values in professional life. He serves as a member of the boards of directors for numerous organizations, including Children Services of Roxbury, Educational Development Center, YMCA Black Achievers, and the Legal Services Corporation. In 2005, he was appointed by the American Bar Association to serve on a special Access to Justice Task Force. In 2007, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino appointed him to serve on the Civilian Review Board for the Boston Police Department.

Dr. Hall is also a recipient of many awards, including the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Outstanding Contribution to the Legal Profession Award, the National Conference of Community and Justice Humanitarian Award, and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Oklahoma.

Dr. Cathy Heenan, one of our affiliated expert/consultants, is a licensed psychologist and educator who brings together the worlds of communication and psychology, both in her private practice and as an organizational consultant. For over twenty-five years she has successfully guided organizations and couples in methods that improve dialogue, helping them to emphasize behaviors that create pathways to understanding, respect for differences and resolution of conflicts.

As a trainer, Dr. Heenan has made presentations on a variety of communication topics including “The Art of Listening”, “Moving Through Impasse” and “Effective Communication Skills” at interdisciplinary venues such as the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP) Forum in Boston and San Diego and at the Second European Conference in Cork, Ireland, 2008. She has presented to Collaborative Practice Groups in New England, New York, Baltimore, Cincinnati and at other Inter-Disciplinary Conferences in Boston, Maine, and Washington, D.C. She has also given workshops for couples in the US and Europe, including the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) Conferences in Budapest and Boston. Her presentations were “Navigating the Course of An Intimate Relationship” and “Fight, Flight, Make It Right: Managing Conflict.” Dr. Heenan is co-author of Preparing, Designing and Leading Workshops: A Humanistic Approach and Bringing Yourself to Work: A Guide to Successful Staff Development in After-School Programs.

As a communications specialist she has worked with organizations facilitating team-building sessions and the resolution of disputes. In collaborative divorce cases, Dr. Heenan works with clients and attorneys as part of the collaborative team. As the team neutral, her participation helps to reduce misunderstandings, clarify interests and goals, and increase effectiveness in achieving a collaborative settlement. She also coaches clients in the management of intense feelings to reduce conflict, and provides specific tools and practical strategies to move through obstacles when they occur. For those clients who have children she facilitates creating a healthy environment for co-parenting. In addition, she assists clients in creating a vision for life after divorce.

Formerly an Assistant Professor of Communications at Northeastern University, her consulting practice includes clients from both the private and public sector. Cathy has worked with both the Massachusetts and Connecticut Departments of Human Services, facilitating statewide efforts to build bridges between licensing regulators, Head Start directors and day care providers.

Susan Miller, one of our affiliated experts/consultants, is a Principal with Aurora Financial Advisors, LLC in Wellesley, MA, an independent financial, investment and economic advisory firm. She provides financial planning, tax, and investment advice to individuals, small business owners and non-profit organizations, and has been doing so for over 25 years. Susan works extensively with lawyers, mediators and clients in addressing financial issues arising from business and marital disputes and serving as a financial expert in collaborative law cases. Susan is also a trained mediator and frequently provides financial mediation services in these situations.

In addition to her financial planning practice, Susan trains financial professionals in the area of collaborative law throughout the U.S. and internationally. Susan has also presented seminars on Financial Issues in Divorce, Financial Planning for Women, Charitable and Planned Giving Strategies, and Stock Option Strategies for Individuals. Susan has been quoted in a number of financial publications, including The Journal of Financial Planning and The Financial Planning Association’s Solutions Magazine.

Susan holds a BA from Wells College in economics and an MA from Pennsylvania State University in economics. She is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), a Certified Financial Planner (CPF) and a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA). She is Treasurer and Board member of the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council (MCLC), a member of the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP) and its Public Education and Civil Committees and member of the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation. Professional associations of which she is a member include the National Association of Personal Financial Planners (NAPFA), Financial Planning Association, Institute of Certified Divorce Financial Analysts and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Douglas C. Reynolds, one of our affiliated expert/consultants in diversity, is a principal of The New Law Center, LLC in Cambridge, MA. Doug has 35 years of experience as a lawyer in business and personal law. He represents clients as settlement counsel and has served as a neutral in mediation and arbitration. Before establishing The New Law Center, he was senior partner and Business Law Department Chair in the Boston firm of Peabody & Arnold, LLP.

As a management consultant, Doug helps clients with diversity issues, conflict management and organizational development. His community service includes work in diversity, restorative justice, parenting education, legal services and community land use. In the area of collaborative law, Doug has developed training materials, served on the faculty for many training programs and has written articles on this emerging practice area, particularly on the application of collaborative law in resolving business disputes.

He is a member of the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council (MCLC) and serves on its Advisory Council, is a former member of the Board of Directors and past chair of the MCLC Business Section. He is also a member of the International Academy of Collaborative Professional (IACP) and has trained at IACP conferences in the U. S. Canada and Ireland. Doug is a graduate of Dartmouth College (BA, 1969) and Boston University School of Law (JD, 1973).

Kaitlin Robinson, focuses her work as attorney with the Center on Probate administration, estate planning and business succession.  She also practices at Hutchings, Barsamian, Mandelcorn & Zeytoonian, LLP as an associate, where she focuses her work on probate and estate planning issues, personal injury and negligence matters.   Kaitlin received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Boston College in 2004 and her J.D. from Suffolk University Law School, where her concentration was in estate planning and probate administration.  Previously, Kaitlin worked as a litigation paralegal for Long & Leahy, as a law clerk in the Massachusetts Superior Court system, and as an executive assistant at Kearney, Donovan & McGee, P.C.  Kaitlin is a member of the Massachusetts and Boston Bar Associations, the Women’s Bar Association, South Shore Young Professionals and the Boston Estate Planning Council.  A former member and Captain of the Varsity Women’s Ice Hockey team at Boston College, Kaitlin remains an avid supporter and participant of ice hockey.

The Center’s Core Staff:

Kathy Pecci is our office administrator and marketing assistant.  She has extensive experience in organizational and management skills.  She has worked in large corporate settings including GTE/General Dynamics and more recently as office manager of Hutchings, Barsamian, Mandelcorn & Zeytoonian, LLP in Wellesley Hills.  Kathy believes in providing excellent client services as well as developing an office environment and structure that allows its professionals to focus on serving their clients well and expand their practices.  While raising her children, she ran a home-based office services business providing a variety of office services to small businesses on an as-needed basis; served on the Board of Directors of the Hopkinton Cultural Arts Alliance for five years; and, provided countless hours of volunteer and fundraising activities for many community organizations.

Boldbrook Marketing is our website and SEO guru and marketing consultant.

Michael Zeytoonian is the Center’s founding member and director.