After serving as senior partner and Business Law Department Chair at Peabody & Arnold LLP in Boston, then as managing partner at Cope & Wilson P.C. in Worcester, Douglas Reynolds built something smaller and different: The New Law Center, LLC, a family-operated firm in Cambridge that combines legal practice across estate planning, real estate, tax law, and business with two offerings unusual for a law firm — diversity consulting and coaching, and formal mediation and collaborative law services. The firm represents forty years of combined practice distilled into a format that is deliberate about what it does and for whom.
Overview
The New Law Center, LLC operates from Cambridge, Massachusetts, serving individuals, families, businesses, and nonprofit organizations. Douglas Reynolds founded the firm after building his career at two Massachusetts law firms, where he was recognized for creating Peabody & Arnold’s Diversity Initiative and Alternative Dispute Resolution program before those concepts were standard in law firm management. The firm now includes attorney Kathleen Miller, whose practice centers on estate planning and nonprofit policy development.
The firm describes itself as family-operated and represents forty years of combined practice. The practice areas span a wider range than most firms of comparable size: estate planning and trust administration, real estate transactions, tax law including IRS audit representation and tax debt resolution, business law, mediation, collaborative law, and nonprofit counsel. Diversity consulting and coaching is offered as an additional service, drawing on Reynolds’s background launching a formal diversity initiative at a Boston firm.
Practice Areas
Estate Planning and Administration. Attorney Kathleen Miller handles individual and family estate planning, including wills, trusts, healthcare proxies, living wills, and durable powers of attorney. The estate planning practice extends to estate administration and estate taxation, helping families navigate the process of carrying out a deceased person’s wishes and satisfying any tax obligations. Miller also assists with guardianship and conservatorship when clients need to obtain legal authority over the affairs of a minor or an incapacitated person.
Real Estate. The firm handles real estate transactions for individuals and businesses in Massachusetts. Real estate work at this scale typically includes purchase and sale agreements, title review, closing representation, and related transactional matters.
Tax Law. The tax law practice is more active than what many estate planning firms offer. The New Law Center handles IRS audit representation, tax debt resolution, and delinquent return preparation — the situations where a client is not just planning but is already in a dispute or problem with the Internal Revenue Service. This is practical, resolution-oriented tax work rather than purely advisory.
Business Law. The firm provides business law services for clients forming, operating, or winding down businesses. This includes entity formation, contract review, and general business counsel. Reynolds’s background as business law department chair at a large Boston firm informs this practice area.
Mediation and Collaborative Law. Douglas Reynolds established the ADR program at Peabody & Arnold before leaving to found his own firm. The New Law Center offers mediation and collaborative law services as alternatives to litigation for clients seeking to resolve disputes — whether business, family, or other matters — without court proceedings. These services allow clients to resolve disputes faster and with more control over the outcome than litigation typically permits.
Nonprofit Counsel. The firm advises nonprofit organizations and assists with nonprofit and school policy development, which is an area of Kathleen Miller’s practice. This includes the legal work that nonprofits need to form, operate, maintain tax-exempt status, and comply with regulatory obligations.
Diversity Consulting and Coaching. An extension of Reynolds’s work launching a formal diversity initiative at a large Boston law firm, the firm offers diversity consulting and coaching services for organizations working to improve their practices in this area. This is not a legal service in the traditional sense but draws on Reynolds’s direct experience with institutional change management.
Attorney Profiles
Douglas C. Reynolds is the founder. He served as senior partner and Business Law Department Chair at Peabody & Arnold LLP in Boston and as managing partner at Cope & Wilson P.C. in Worcester before establishing The New Law Center. At Peabody & Arnold, he created the firm’s Diversity Initiative and Alternative Dispute Resolution program. His legal background spans business law, dispute resolution, and more than forty years of combined practice. He is admitted to the Massachusetts bar (implied by his Massachusetts law firm history).
Kathleen Miller is an attorney whose practice focuses on estate planning and administration, and nonprofit and school policy development. She represents individuals and families in wills, trusts, healthcare proxies, living wills, and powers of attorney. She handles estate administration, estate taxation, guardianship, and conservatorship. She is admitted to the Massachusetts bar (implied by her Massachusetts practice).
Location and Service Area
The New Law Center, LLC is located at 545 Concord Avenue, Suite 15, Cambridge, MA 02138. Phone: 617-492-4400. The website is thenewlawcenter.com/
The firm serves Massachusetts, with a primary focus on Cambridge and the greater Boston area.
Client Focus
The firm serves a range of clients that reflects the breadth of its practice: individuals and families who need estate plans and real estate transaction representation; individuals with IRS tax problems who need audit representation or debt resolution; businesses seeking formation and general counsel; nonprofits needing policy guidance and organizational counsel; and parties in disputes who want mediation or collaborative law as an alternative to litigation.
The diversity consulting practice is oriented toward organizations that are working on internal culture and policy, drawing on Reynolds’s firsthand experience launching a diversity initiative at a Boston-area law firm. This service extends the firm’s value beyond purely legal work to the organizational challenges that often accompany it.
FAQ
What does it mean that the firm offers IRS audit representation and tax debt resolution?
These are active, problem-solving tax services for clients who are already in trouble with the IRS — facing an audit, carrying unresolved tax debt, or managing unfiled returns. This is different from tax planning advice given in advance. The firm represents clients in IRS audit proceedings, negotiates resolution of tax debts through available IRS programs, and assists with getting delinquent returns filed and resolved.
What is collaborative law, and how is it different from mediation?
In mediation, a neutral mediator helps disputing parties reach an agreement but does not represent either side. In collaborative law, each party has their own attorney, but all parties sign an agreement to resolve the dispute without litigation. If the collaborative process breaks down, the collaborative attorneys withdraw and the parties must hire new litigation counsel. Both approaches are alternatives to courtroom disputes. The New Law Center offers both.
Does the firm handle both individual estate planning and nonprofit organizational work?
Yes. Kathleen Miller’s practice includes individual estate planning — wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and related documents — as well as nonprofit and school policy development. Clients who run nonprofits and also need personal estate plans can address both needs at the firm.
What is the background of the Diversity Initiative Douglas Reynolds created at Peabody & Arnold?
Reynolds launched Peabody & Arnold’s Diversity Initiative and Alternative Dispute Resolution program during his tenure as Business Law Department Chair. This is the practical foundation for the diversity consulting and coaching services the firm now offers. The service draws on the experience of actually building and managing a diversity program within a law firm environment.
Can the firm help with estate administration after a death, not just planning before it?
Yes. Kathleen Miller handles estate administration, which is the process of carrying out a deceased person’s estate plan, paying debts and taxes, and distributing assets to heirs and beneficiaries. This includes both formal probate proceedings and non-probate administration of trust assets.
Closing
Forty years of combined practice, a founder who ran the business law department and built the diversity initiative at a prominent Boston firm, and a practice scope that adds IRS audit representation, mediation, collaborative law, and diversity consulting to the standard estate planning and real estate menu — The New Law Center, LLC is the product of experience that outgrew the large firm context and found a more flexible expression in Cambridge.