BLC’s mission is to build a values-based, multidisciplinary law and dispute resolution firm that helps people resolve conflict in family, business, and employment cases.
Firm Values:
- Service to clients – the highest quality work
- Spiritual and moral integrity
- Service to the community
- Broad, “holistic” perspective about client services and life in general
- Commitment to multidisciplinary practice (including psychology, financial services, and workplace consulting, among others)
- Commitment to expanding the use of dispute resolution and collaborative law
- Flexibility about pricing services so that they can be provided to more than just the affluent
- Openness to innovations in services and the structure of the organization
- Fairness about compensation to members of the BLC team based on contribution
- Flexibility about differing levels of contribution
- Support for ancillary work (e.g., teaching and writing) by members of the BLC team
- Support for additional education for members of the team
- Sharing with others what we have learned from trying to create such a firm
- Collegiality and mutual respect – creating a feeling of community within the office
- Work-family balance
- Consensus-based, democratic decision-making in the office
- Making a good living
- Fun
BLC Motto: “Our life is more than our work and our work is more than our job.” (Singer/songwriter Charlie King)
Commitment to Giving Back to the Community:
BLC provides pro bono mediation services for the Community Dispute Settlement Center (“CDSC”) and several court-connected mediation programs, and provides pro bono training services for CDSC, the Women’s Bar Foundation Family Law Project for Battered Women, Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education,and a number of national and local dispute resolution organizations and bar associations.
BLC supports a number of charities, public interest groups, and 501(c)(3) organizations, including the following:
- Alzheimer’s Association
- American Civil Liberties Union Foundation
- American Heart Association
- American Red Cross
- Association for Conflict Resolution
- Bette Winik Scholarship Fund (Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council)
- Borgen Project
- The Boston Globe News in Education
- Community Dispute Settlement Center
- Cradles to Crayons
- Dana Farber Cancer Institute
- Greater Boston Food Bank
- Harvard Negotiation Insight Initiative
- Humane Society of the United States
- International Academy of Collaborative Professionals
- The Jimmy Fund
- Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
- Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services
- Mediators Beyond Borders
- Muscular Dystrophy Association
- National Association for Community Mediation
- National Lawyers Guild
- New England Chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution
- No Place for Hate
- Project Bread – The Walk for Hunger
- Rosie’s Place
- SOVA – Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles
- Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
- Union of Reform Judaism