John D. Hanify

John D. Hanify built his career at the center of commercial conflict in Boston, co-founding Hanify & King and later heading Jones Day’s Boston litigation practice, representing business clients through the shareholder battles, federal securities disputes, fiduciary claims, and corporate conflicts that defined or threatened their enterprises. He arrives at mediation with an unsparing understanding of what prolonged conflict costs all parties, and what it genuinely takes to end it well. That is the foundation he brings to every matter at Signature Resolution.

John’s approach at the table is rooted in authenticity. He enters each session with real curiosity about the people involved, asks the questions that get beneath the legal positions to what parties actually need, and gives them the space to say it fully. He is warm and unhurried, and that steadiness earns the trust that makes difficult conversations possible. He builds toward resolution deliberately, accumulating shared ground before the harder work begins, and engages the money gap directly when it arrives. When the parties reach agreement, John treats the work as unfinished until a complete, enforceable resolution is documented, understanding that a durable outcome is the only outcome that counts.

Early in his career, John served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Massachusetts where a focus on civil litigation and a reputation for reasonableness distinguished him across the federal legal community. In 1980, he co-founded Hanify & King, building it over thirty years into a forty-lawyer firm with offices in Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York City before joining Jones Day to help establish and lead its Boston litigation practice. Across his practice, John has seen commercial conflict from every angle: as the lawyer building the case, as the partner managing the client relationship, and as the firm leader absorbing the real financial and human cost of prolonged disputes. That perspective is what allows him to meet every party in the room where they actually are.

For John, the transition to mediation was not a departure from his practice but a natural extension of what has always driven it. Prior to becoming a full-time mediator and establishing his alternative dispute resolution firm, Middlesex Mediation, LLC, John represented clients in dozens of successful mediations. He has also taught the National Institute of Trial Attorneys Negotiation and Mediation Skills Programs and serves as an Adjunct Professor at Boston College Law School, teaching Mediation and Dispute Resolution Principles. That investment in the field, as practitioner, advocate, and educator, speaks to how seriously John takes the work.

Now at Signature Resolution, John brings the full weight of a career spent inside commercial conflict to the parties who need help ending it. He sees past entrenched positions to what parties actually need, and he has the credibility to move them there. For attorneys whose clients are ready to stop absorbing the cost of conflict and start finding a way through it, John delivers.