David Hoffman teaches the Mediation course at Harvard Law School, and has served as a guest lecturer in a variety of PON programs.  He is a mediator, arbitrator, and attorney at Boston Law Collaborative, LLC, which he founded in 2003.  BLC was the recipient in 2009 of the American Bar Association’s annual Lawyer as Problem Solver Award, and in 2010 of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution’s annual Law Firm Award for Excellence in ADR.  In 2005, David received the annual Peacemaker Award of the Community Dispute Settlement Center.

David is the co-author (with Prof. David Matz) of “Massachusetts Alternative Dispute Resolution” (Butterworth Legal Publishers) and co-editor (with Daniel Bowling) of “Bringing Peace into the Room: How the Personal Qualities of the Mediator Impact the Process of Conflict Resolution” (Jossey-Bass).

David has served as chair of the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution, president of the New England chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution, chair of the Boston Bar Association ADR Committee, chair of the Collaborative Law Committee of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution, and a founding member of the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council.

In November 2004, David was chosen as one of the “Top 100 Lawyers” in Massachusetts in Boston Magazine’s SuperLawyers Directory and has been consistently named a Massachusetts SuperLawyer since the listing began.  David is also listed in the book “The Best Lawyers in America” in the categories of Alternative Dispute Resolution, Collaborative Family Law, and Family Law Mediation.  He has served as mediator and arbitrator in more than one thousand commercial, family, employment, construction, personal injury, insurance, and other business cases.  David was previously a litigation and family law partner at Hill & Barlow, where he practiced from 17 years.

David is a graduate of Princeton University (A.B. 1970, summa cum laude), Cornell University (M.A., American Studies, 1974), and Harvard Law School (J.D. 1984, magna cum laude), where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Select Articles and Book Chapters:

• Cooperative Negotiation Agreements: Using Contracts to Make a Safe Place for a Difficult Conversation, in Innovations in Family Law Practice (eds. K.B. Olson & N. VerSteegh) (Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, 2008)
• Collaborative Law and the Use of Settlement Counsel, in Alternative Dispute Resolution Practice Guide (eds. Bette J. Roth, Randall L. Wulff & Charles A. Cooper) (West Publishing (2002)
• Op-ed: Microsoft and Yahoo: Where were the mediators? It works for countries and couples – why not businesses?, Christian Science Monitor (May 12, 2008) (this article won an award for best short article from the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution, www.cpradr.org ^[1])
• Leveling the Playing Field for Workplace Neutrals: A Proposal for Achieving Racial and Ethnic Diversity, Dispute Resolution Journal (February/April 2008) (with co-author Lamont Stallworth)
• Colliding Worlds of Dispute Resolution: Towards a Unified Field Theory of ADR, 2008 Dispute Resolution Journal (2008)
• The Future of ADR: Professionalization, Spirituality, and the Internet, Dispute Resolution Magazine 6 (Summer 2008)
• The Future of ADR Practice: Three Hopes, Three Fears, and Three Predictions, Negotiation Journal (October 2006)

Link to website:

www.BostonLawCollaborative.com ^[2]