The Panel
Some of us are recently retired from Boston or international law firms. Others continue in the active practice of business trial law.
We require our ADR assignments be treated confidentially and expect close examination and disclosure by our neutrals of any conflicts, personal or professional.
All of our panel members have had extensive careers as lawyers to business, academic or charitable corporations and on behalf of corporate employees. They have tried varied business cases and settled multiples of those they tried. They have seen the utility of early settlements and also understood the challenges of maneuvering an active matter in litigation onto a pathway toward settlement. And they appreciate the sensitivity of parties or counsel to premature settlement or mediation efforts.
Indeed, Middlesex neutrals understand from their own business experiences the necessity of having sufficient facts available to trial counsel before mediation or ADR can ever be effective. We won’t be reluctant to tell you that a matter is not ripe for mediation or cannot successfully settle without the addition of other interested parties.
Several of our neutrals have had significant experience with disputes involving non-profits, academic discipline and proceedings, student abuse and discrimination claims. These neutrals have discretion to serve ADR proceedings in such matters.
We are pleased to come to the parties’ locations for ADR in Massachusetts and the Northeast.
From 2016 to 2022, Karen F. Green was an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court, where she handled complex commercial cases in the Business Litigation Session and cases charging serious felonies in criminal trial sessions.
Before her judicial appointment, Green was a partner at WilmerHale, where her practice concentrated on complex business litigation. She was a member of WilmerHale’s Executive Committee and co-chair of its Litigation/Controversy Department. Prior to its merger with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, she chaired Hale and Dorr’s Litigation Department.
Earlier in her career, Green was the first female Deputy US Attorney in Massachusetts, the first female chief of staff to a Massachusetts governor, an Assistant US Attorney and Deputy Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Civil Division, and a law clerk to US District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr.
Green is a Fellow of Litigation Counsel of America and served as its President in 2016. She has consistently been recognized by clients and peers as a litigation leader in Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA, Boston Magazine, and other publications. She was listed as a “Super Lawyer” in the 2004-2016 editions of New England Super Lawyers and featured in the 2015 edition. She was twice selected as a “Top Woman of the Law” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, which inducted her into its Circle of Excellence in 2015. In 2021 and 2022, the Women’s White Collar Defense Association recognized Green as a “Trailblazer.” Read a more complete biography of Karen.
Bill Meserve is a resident of Maine and a retired partner from Ropes & Gray in Boston. While at Ropes, Bill was responsible for a wide variety of complex civil matters in state and federal courts and before administrative agencies, including jury and jury- waived trials, utility rate cases, contract disputes, construction litigation, defamation and other torts, securities, labor, real estate and general commercial litigation. He handled dozens of ADR proceedings including arbitrations and mediations. In recognition of his leadership and experience, Bill served as head of the Ropes & Gray Litigation Department and as a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a position he has held for nearly 40 years.
Bill is a magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University, earned his law degree from Harvard Law School with honors, and received a M.Sc. in International Relations from the London School of Economics where he studied under a Frank Knox fellowship from Harvard. He remains a member of the Massachusetts Bar.
Alan founded Rose Law Partners LLP (then Rose & Associates) in 1995 and remains the firm’s Managing Partner. He represents clients in a wide variety of civil litigation matters and defends individuals and companies in governmental and regulatory investigations and prosecutions. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He was an Assistant U.S. Attorney from 1975-1980, and was then a partner at Nutter, McClennen & Fish, where he was the Chair of the Litigation Department. Alan has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Massachusetts by Boston Magazine and has been listed in Best Lawyers in America® since 1995, for his expertise in Commercial Litigation, Education Law, Bet-the-Company Litigation, White Collar Criminal Defense, and Labor and Employment Litigation. Alan has tried over 50 cases to verdict in state and federal courts in Massachusetts and argued more than 30 appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the Massachusetts Appeals Court, and the Supreme Judicial Court. He has handled leading cases in many substantive areas of business and commercial law. Alan was also the Chair of the Board of Bar Overseers in Massachusetts. Read a more complete biography of Alan.
Michelle is a Partner in Hinckley Allen’s Litigation group and Co-Chair of the White Collar & Government Enforcement group. Michelle is a past president of the Women’s Bar Foundation and of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts. Michelle has been selected as a “Super Lawyer” for 2009-2022. She has tried numerous jury and bench trials and has litigated business disputes for companies and individuals including contract disputes, litigation between businesses, employment disputes, insurance, and many others. Among other matters, she successfully defended a public authority in a commercial contract suit claiming nearly $10M in damages; she represented a health plan in favorably resolving class action lawsuit under Mental Health Parity Act; she has represented parties in contentious business “divorces” including a defense award in an arbitration defending clients in medical practice partnership dispute; and she has defended clients in complex employment discrimination matters. Her practice, which has a heavy focus on the healthcare industry, also includes defending clients during Massachusetts Attorney General healthcare fraud and consumer protection investigations and professionals in disciplinary, regulatory, and licensing proceedings. Read a complete biography for Michelle.
John is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. He was a partner at Jones Day and retired from that firm in 2019 where he had served as head of its Boston litigation practice. In private practice for four decades, John tried dozens of jury and non-jury cases on behalf of officers, employees, shareholders, creditors and financial and banking institutions and partnerships. His cases involved investigations, shareholder disputes, closely-held corporations, successor liability issues, corporate dissolutions, shareholder deadlock, federal securities class actions, ERISA, lender liability, real estate development disputes, partnership accounting, fiduciary duty, and liability arising from mergers and acquisitions and related financial warranties. He has been recognized by Chambers USA as a leading business trial lawyer in Massachusetts and has been voted by his peers as a Super Lawyer for two decades. John has participated in dozens of ADR proceedings including mediations, arbitrations, case evaluation and mini-trials. He has taught mediation skills at the National Institute of Trial Attorneys and at Jones Day. Read a more complete biography of John.
Chris is a founding partner of Donnelly, Conroy and Gelhaar, LLP of Boston. In his four decade career he has advised and represented clients in business disputes and trials involving, among others, intellectual property, breach of contract, mergers and acquisitions, corporate control and governance, breach of fiduciary duty, employment, defamation, professional malpractice, and virtually every other commercial controversy. In addition to his trial work, Chris has been an arbitrator and mediator since 1989. A graduate of MIT and Michigan Law School, Chris began his career as a law clerk in the Southern District of New York and Second Circuit, then worked at Nutter, McClennen & Fish, where he was a partner in the trial department before founding DCG in 1991. Chris is recognized in the most recent edition of Best Lawyers in America for his work in Commercial Litigation, Intellectual Property Litigation, Arbitration and Corporate Governance Law. Chambers USA recognizes Chris as a leading Massachusetts Commercial Litigation Practitioner. Read a more complete biography of Chris.
Joe is the managing partner of the Providence Rhode Island firm of Blish & Cavanagh, the head of its civil litigation/trial practice area, and the firm’s senior trial lawyer. He has litigated cases in many different areas, including antitrust, libel, products liability, sexual harassment and employment, RICO, personal injury, medical malpractice, and patent law. During his career, he has briefed and argued many appeals before the Rhode Island Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He has been recognized as an outstanding litigator by Chambers USA every year from 2005 to date. He has also been named a Rhode Island and New England Super Lawyer in successive years and has been a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers since 1990 and served on the Rhode Island Board of Bar Examiners for nine years. Read a complete biography for Joe.