Michael T. Sullivan is a trial and appellate attorney who handles complicated high-stakes disputes, particularly in the construction, real estate, and health care industries, and most often for engineering firms and construction companies involved in contract or professional-negligence disputes. On behalf of plaintiffs and defendants, he has been lead counsel in numerous trials, arbitrations, and mediations across many jurisdictions. While chiefly a litigator, Michael also provides general counsel and up-front advice to businesses seeking to avoid legal disputes. He is firmly committed to understanding the unique needs of his clients, and to finding creative and practical solutions to their legal issues. In each case, he makes every effort to tailor his representation to all of his client’s relevant interests (legal, business, and financial), and to advance these interests as efficiently as possible, whether the matter calls for an early resolution with a modest legal budget, or more extensive advocacy.
Michael is a thought leader in the legal industry who has authored and participated in many articles and seminars. He holds the AV® Preeminent™ rating, the highest peer-reviewed rating from Martindale–Hubbell, given to attorneys who display exceptional legal skills and ethical conduct. He is consistently named in the annual lists of U.S. News and World Report’s “Best Lawyers in America” and Massachusetts Super Lawyers. Since 2021, he has been a Fellow of the Construction Lawyers Society of America, a selective, invitation-only association of highly experienced construction lawyers throughout the world. More recently, he was named in the Thomson Reuters Stand-Out Lawyers database based upon a national survey of in-house corporate counsel.
Michael is a member of the Massachusetts, Boston, Rhode Island, and Essex County Bar associations, and he served as the long-time Chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals in the town of Manchester-by-the-Sea, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. He reads, exercises, hikes with his dog, and travels with his family whenever he has chance.