About David Michael
David Michael Doto built a career that blends courtroom experience and conflict resolution teaching. He earned a B.A. in Psychology and Philosophy from Villanova University in 1986, a J.D. from Villanova University School of Law in 1991, and later completed an LL.M. in Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University’s Straus Institute in 2014. Those academic stops shaped both his litigation work and his turn toward alternative dispute resolution.
He began his legal career in private practice and spent early years as a litigation associate before moving into partnership roles. Over time he has held titles ranging from partner and shareholder to solo practitioner and of counsel. Notable firm roles include partner positions at Phelan, Pettit & Biedrzycki and later shareholder status, a period as a solo practitioner operating the Law Offices of David M. Doto, and work as of counsel at a regional firm. In 2012 he served as a principal at CoralBridge Partners, LLC, and in 2019 he joined Hutchison & Steffen as Senior Partner and ADR/Training Practice Group Leader.
Mediation and conflict management became central to his practice in the 2010s. He opened a practice doing mediation and conflict management consulting and joined federal and agency panels, including work as an EEOC RESOLVE Program mediation panelist in 2012. He has also taught dispute resolution at the law school level. He served as an adjunct professor at the UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law’s Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution in 2013 and taught at Pepperdine’s Straus Institute as an adjunct in 2014.
His public service includes a stint as a judicial referee for traffic matters in Clark County Courts in 2015. He has remained active in local and state bar committee work, serving on the Nevada State Bar ADR Committee and the Fee Dispute Committee, and participating on Clark County Bar Association publications and CLE committees. He is involved with the American Academy of Alternative Dispute Resolution and listed as a co-founder of Litigation Counsel of America. He maintains bar memberships in Nevada (since 2010) and in Pennsylvania, where his membership is inactive but dates to 1991.
Doto is admitted to practice in multiple federal and state jurisdictions, including the 3rd Circuit, the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Middle Districts of Pennsylvania, the District of New Jersey, and the District of Nevada. His work combines mediation, training, and consulting. He currently practices at Hutchison & Steffen and concentrates on mediation, ADR training, and conflict management consulting.
