Healthcare Arbitration and Mediation Services

Michael’s philosophical approach to both arbitration and mediation is grounded in a core conviction: that disputes — even high-stakes, high-conflict ones — are most productively understood not merely as legal contests but as human situations with underlying interests that the law alone cannot fully address.

In mediation, he approaches each matter as an opportunity to help parties access what is actually driving the conflict beneath the surface of their legal claims — whether that is a founder relationship that has broken down, a financial arrangement that no longer reflects the parties’ intentions, or a regulatory misalignment that has created distrust. His goal is not to impose resolution but to create the conditions in which the parties can reach it themselves, with a clear-eyed understanding of their options, risks, and interests.

In arbitration, his approach is structured, disciplined, and attentive to the integrity of the process. He believes that a well-run arbitration — one in which procedural fairness is scrupulously maintained, evidentiary standards are consistently applied, and reasoned decisions are clearly written — is itself a form of justice, independent of the outcome.

Across both disciplines, Michael brings what his judicial clerkship with Chief Judge Griesa first trained in him: the ability to listen carefully, to distinguish the essential from the peripheral, and to render judgment — or facilitate resolution — with clarity, fairness, and respect for the people on both sides of the table.

Michael’s approach to dispute resolution draws on a breadth of training in human communication, presence, and healing that extends well beyond conventional legal education.

He completed a two-year ministerial program at The New Seminary for Interfaith Studies in New York City, founded by Rabbi Joseph Gelberman, one of the earliest and most respected interfaith seminary programs in the United States. He completed a four-year program at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing in Florida, studying energy healing modalities related to therapeutic touch and Reiki. He trained as a hospice volunteer with Compassion in Action, Dannion Brinkley’s program supporting the dying and critically ill through hospital visitation. He completed his yoga teacher training at Full Spectrum Yoga under John Childers and became a Registered Yoga Teacher and undertook a month’s immersive study of Ashtanga yoga with K. Pattabhi Jois in India. He also completed training in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and hypnotherapy with Anné Linden, a pioneer in NLP whose work is internationally recognized.

He was selected to attend the Medical Institute for Law Faculty at the Cleveland Clinic (1994), an experience that directly informed his scholarship on bioethics and the physician-patient relationship, including his article Toward a Bioethics of Compassion, published in the Indiana Law Review.

These experiences inform Michael’s conviction that effective dispute resolution requires not only analytical rigor but genuine human presence — the capacity to listen deeply, to hold conflict without reactivity, and to help parties access the underlying interests and needs that formal legal proceedings alone rarely reach.

In addition to arbitration, Michael serves as a mediator in healthcare and life sciences disputes — bringing the same regulatory depth and analytical rigor to a facilitative role aimed at helping parties reach a negotiated resolution without a binding decision. Mediation is often the right choice when parties want to preserve an ongoing business relationship, when the dispute involves regulatory ambiguity that a ruling cannot fully resolve, or when both sides would benefit from a neutral who deeply understands the healthcare compliance landscape that frames the conflict. Michael’s mediation practice draws on formal training at the Center for Dispute Resolution (Santa Monica, 2013), the Advanced Mediation Skills Practicum at the Los Angeles County Bar Association (2013), and his background advising healthcare ventures through complex regulatory and transactional negotiations — situations where finding a workable path forward, not just a legally correct answer, is the goal.