Mr. Flegal has been mediating in New Hampshire for over 25 years.

Unlike most mediators in New Hampshire, Mr. Flegal is neither a trial lawyer nor a retired judge. His approach to mediation comes from his 35 years of work representing closely held and family businesses and partnerships, his work with borrowers and banks in transactions and loan workouts of all shapes and sizes, and his commitment to formal mediation and negotiation training. While his legal work has been done largely outside the courtroom, his business and transactional experience, combined with his commitment to education and training, make him an effective mediator in just about any situation.

Mr. Flegal cut his teeth doing volunteer mediating in the Nashua and Merrimack Small Claims Courts. Though small in dollar amount, the emotion that characterized those conflicts taught him many valuable lessons. Mediations were conducted in tiny rooms, with parties who knew nothing about the process, and who were angry because they were missing work to be there. Mr. Flegal also mediated for years in the New Hampshire Rule 170 program at Superior Courts around the state. The bulk of his mediation work has been conducted at the request of fellow members of the Nashua Bar Association who know him well.

During Mr. Flegal’s career he has actively served the New Hampshire Bar Association and the legal community at large. In 1991, he was appointed by the New Hampshire Supreme Court to serve as one of 12 members of the New Hampshire Board of Bar Examiners, and he served the bar in that capacity for almost 10 years, writing an essay question and grading the answers on the New Hampshire Bar Examination 2 times each year. Mr. Flegal was also appointed by the New Hampshire Supreme Court to serve on the New Hampshire Judicial Branch Dispute Resolution Committee in 2007. He is a past president of the Nashua Bar Association. In 2009 the Nashua Bar Association awarded him its highest honor, the Edward C. Jordan, Sr. Humanitarian award, in honor of his commitment to the legal profession and his promotion of congeniality and dignity among his peers.

Mr. Flegal has obtained the bulk of his mediation training at the Harvard Program of Instruction for Lawyers (the “HPIL”), and the Harvard Program on Negotiation (the “HPON”). He is a 2004 graduate of the Advanced Mediation Workshop at the HPIL, an intensive week-long class during which he was trained by Harvard Law School Professors Robert Mnookin and Gary J. Friedman in the “Understanding-based” mediation model. In 2005 his article “Advocating for Understanding – Why the Understanding-based Mediation Model Works” was published in the Summer edition of the New Hampshire Bar Journal. A copy of that article is available on this website.

In 2005 Mr. Flegal also graduated from an Advanced Negotiation Workshop at the HPIL entitled “Understanding and Managing Difficult Conversations”, which focused on managing the interpersonal relations involved in difficult negotiations. He is returning to the HPON in the fall of 2020, where he will attend a virtual semester-length class on Advanced Negotiation and Mediation, keeping him on the cutting edge of negotiation and mediation theories and techniques. Mr. Flegal also served two terms on the board of directors of the New England chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution (“NEACR”) and served as president of that chapter in 2007-08.

Throughout his career, Mr. Flegal has also been an active member of the greater Nashua business community. In 2003 he received the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the Year Award. In 2004, he received the New Hampshire Business Review Excellence Award for excellence in the field of law. He is a past president of the board of directors of the Greater Nashua Mental Health Center. He is a past board Chair of the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce and was a member of its inaugural Leadership Greater Nashua class in 1993. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Nashua Education Foundation and is Board Chair-elect at Home Health and Hospice Care in Merrimack, New Hampshire. Most recently, he was elected to serve on the Board of Directors for Pennichuck Corporation. Mr. Flegal is originally from Clifton Park, New York. He did his undergraduate work at Amherst College, and obtained is law degree from the DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, IL. He is married to Sheelu Joshi Flegal and resides in Nashua. He is the father of daughters Jane and Mia, and his son Calvin.