Hon. Suzanne DelVecchio (Ret.)

Hon. Suzanne DelVecchio (Ret.) joins Signature Resolution as one of the most seasoned neutrals in the Massachusetts legal community, carrying nearly two decades of full-time mediation practice, 21 years on the Massachusetts Superior Court bench, and an approach to resolution that is at once disarming and exacting. A former Chief Justice who remade court institutions under resistance and a litigator forged in years of public service, Judge DelVecchio brings an authoritative command of how courts evaluate cases and a rare, clear-eyed understanding of what it costs parties, emotionally and practically, to remain in conflict.

Judge DelVecchio’s mediation practice is built on preparation and the disciplined management of expectations. She studies every case before entering the room and opens each session with a neutral recitation of both parties’ positions, presenting each side’s argument and capturing the sum of the case with precision. From there, she moves between rooms steadily and candidly, surfacing the distance between what parties expect and what courts are likely to deliver, with the credibility of someone who has presided over those outcomes from the bench. When cases arrive before they are ready, before discovery is complete or positions are grounded in reality, she names it directly, articulates what she needs to close the gap, and asks parties to return prepared. Her prodigious settlement record is a reflection of that discipline.

Judge DelVecchio was appointed to the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1985, presiding over civil and criminal matters before ascending to Chief Justice in 1999, a role she held through 2004. In that capacity, she reshaped how the court served the business community. Over the objections of her fellow judges, she launched the Business Litigation Session, a dedicated docket for complex commercial matters that expanded from a county pilot into a statewide institution. She also established a pro se mediation program, securing legislative funding to deploy mediators across Massachusetts, ensuring that self-represented litigants had meaningful access to the process. Both initiatives reflect her governing instinct: identify what the system actually needs, then build it, regardless of roadblocks.

Before her appointment to the bench, Judge DelVecchio built her career in the courtroom. She stepped into litigation immediately out of law school at the Boston Legal Aid Society, then spent a decade as Assistant Corporation Counsel for the City of Boston, handling daily civil litigation alongside agency work for the Public Works Department and Boston City Hospital, including federal court matters during the city’s school desegregation proceedings. She went on to co-found Boorstein & DelVecchio, continuing to try cases across a broad range of civil matters. She also served as an Adjunct Professor at Boston University School of Law, teaching trial practice to the next generation of litigators.

Now, Judge DelVecchio’s work at Signature Resolution draws on the full arc of that career: the litigator who understood the human stakes of every dispute, the Chief Justice who knew how to move institutions and manage expectations, and the mediator who has spent nearly two decades helping parties close the distance between where they start and where they need to be for real closure. Her presence in the room is steady, her read on cases is direct, and her commitment to resolution holds through the moments when progress feels furthest away.