2023–24 Officers 

Damian J. Turco

President

Firm: Founder and Managing Partner at Turco Legal PC, and Co-Founder and President of JusticeApp, Inc.

Education: B.S., Bryant College, 1999; J.D., New England Law | Boston, 2008

Legal Career: Damian J. Turco is the founder and managing partner at Turco Legal PC, a 12-attorney divorce and family law firm with offices in Andover, Boston, Newburyport and Newton. Since 2008, he and his practice have represented clients through complex divorces, child custody cases, adoptions and other family law matters. He’s been lead counsel in hundreds of matters, both in Florida and Massachusetts, and today his role is that of a senior strategist in both the litigation and business interests of the firm and its client matters. The professional achievement he’s most proud of is shepherding Turco Legal from a solo practice to a team of highly competent and experienced attorneys and support staff twice, first in Florida and, since 2013, in Massachusetts. The firm’s culture is one of support, compassion, inclusion and flexibility. Access to justice, diversity and well-being initiatives are well established and supported at the firm, and contribute to the pursuit of a fair, equitable, and balanced practice of law. The entirety of the 20-member staff work hybrid schedules, with unlimited vacation time and incentives for taking on leadership roles, presenting and attending educational programming, and receiving positive client feedback. Turco has mentored dozens of lawyers, students, and support staff in their pursuits of legal careers and practice-building, and he’s been honored by numerous organizations, including Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly as an Up and Coming Lawyer and the MBA for his volunteerism and leadership.

Legal Tech Career: Turco is also the co-founder and president of JusticeApp, Inc., a legal technology company with the mission of eliminating injustice nationwide. JusticeApp is a mobile app that aggregates free legal resources and offers low-cost legal form generation and secure data storage designed to simplify the legal system for unrepresented parties. He established JusticeApp to serve as a reliable resource for those litigants in the justice gap, those in need of legal help without the resources to secure it.

MBA Service: Since 2013, Turco has been an active and contributing leader and volunteer at the MBA, working meaningfully and intentionally to improve the organization, its membership and the legal community at large through service. First serving on the MBA’s Law Practice Management Section, where he took on the vice chair and then chair positions, he’s participated in or overseen dozens of law-practice-focused programs and publications. While serving in this role, Turco developed and launched an MBA Mock Interview Program, which has benefited hundreds of graduating law school students by providing them with job interview skills through mock interviews with MBA lawyer volunteers. Turco has served on the MBA’s Civility and Professionalism Committee and has served on and chaired the Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Scholarship Committee, the MBA’s Digital Marketing Committee, and the Annual Gala Committee. Turco served on the MBA’s COVID Response Task Force and was instrumental in forming and running the Family Law COVID Working Group and the Law Practice Management/Remote Practice Working Group. He’s volunteered in the MBA’s High School Mock Trial program, both as a judge and a coach, and Law Day program, taking the initiative to collaborate with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to expand the programs’ reach. Turco has served on the MBA’s Budget & Finance Committee and the Executive Management Board since 2016, overseeing the MBA’s financial interests, administration and strategic planning alongside officers, past presidents, other leaders with extensive experience at the MBA and the organization’s staff. He’s routinely a representative of the MBA elsewhere in the community, presenting at Massachusetts attorney swearing-in ceremonies and at events of other organizations, such as the Massachusetts Bar Foundation, the American Bar Association and the New England Bar Association. He’s lobbied both the state and federal legislatures for increased funding for legal aid on behalf of the MBA and its membership. He’s also built effective working relationships with leaders in the Trial Court, law schools, and affinity and county bar associations across the commonwealth. Turco has served as the MBA’s secretary, treasurer, vice president, president-elect, and now president.

Additional Service: Turco has served in important leadership roles outside the MBA. He’s served in leadership on the New England Bar Association, including as president for the 2023-24 term, collaborating with bar leaders at the other New England state bar associations on best practices and emerging challenges. He was also one of three attorneys to re-establish the Greater Newburyport Bar Association to a thriving, local legal community and served as the organization’s treasurer and on its board for several years. He’s served in leadership roles at Lawyers for Affordable Justice, a Boston-based legal incubator founded by Boston College, Boston University, and Northeastern University law schools, and he served on the board of the Legal Advocacy and Resource Center (LARC), a phone-based legal access resource. Turco’s performed extensive volunteer work in the community, including at the Greater Boston Food Bank, St. Francis House Day Shelter, and other homeless and day shelters across the commonwealth. 

Additional Information: He grew up in Andover and lives in Newburyport with his wife, Melina, and three daughters.

Victoria M. Santoro

President-Elect

Firm: Partner at Sweeney Merrigan Law LLP in Boston

Education: B.A, Wesleyan University, 2007; J.D., Boston College Law School, 2010

Legal Career: Victoria “Tori” M. Santoro is a partner at Sweeney Merrigan Law in Boston, joining the firm as part of its high exposure trial team. She handles a variety of cases including all types of catastrophic injury, including pharmaceutical litigation, wrongful death, medical malpractice and sexual assault. She has a thriving practice handling rideshare cases. Santoro also regularly handles trials, arbitration, mediation, complex brief writing and motion hearings, intakes of new clients, legal seminars, live interviews, and more. Notable results include a multi-million-dollar verdict against an international hotel chain for the wrongful death drowning of a father of four. Santoro has had several seven-figure plaintiff's verdicts. During the height of the COVID crisis, she prevailed in the state’s first entirely remote civil jury trial. In her first year of eligibility, Santoro was voted a Super Lawyers Rising Star. In 2014, she was honored with an Excellence in The Law “Up & Coming Lawyer” award from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. In 2022, she was announced in Best Lawyers in America: Ones to Watch in three practice areas: Products Liability, Personal Injury and Medical Malpractice. She was also named to the 2022 Top Women of Law by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. 

MBA Service: In addition to serving as MBA president-elect, Santoro is a member of the MBA's Executive Management Board, Budget & Finance Committee and House of Delegates. A graduate of the MBA's 2016-17 Leadership Academy — a program designed to develop future bar and civic leaders — Santoro is a member of the association's Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Scholarship Committee. She also is a past chair of the MBA's Young Lawyers Division and has served on the Civil Litigation and Solo/Small Firm Law Practice Management section councils.

Additional Service: Outside the MBA, Santoro speaks regularly at national legal conferences, local continuing legal education seminars, and has been a guest speaker and lecturer in law schools. She has been asked to speak at the swearing in of new Massachusetts lawyers every year since 2015, which is one of the highlights of her year.

Additional Information: Santoro lives in Concord, Massachusetts with her son and rescue dog. She is a 2007 graduate of Wesleyan University and attended Boston College Law School.

Michael H. Hayden

Vice President

Firm: Partner at Morrison Mahoney LLP in Boston

Education: B.A., Brandeis University, magna cum laude, 1999; J.D., Boston College Law School, 2004

Legal Career: Michael H. Hayden is a partner at Morrison Mahoney LLP in Boston and focuses his practice on professional liability, specifically defense of nonmedical professionals, such as lawyers, architects, engineers and real estate brokers. In addition, Hayden practices retail litigation, product liability, liquor liability, transportation law and environmental law. Hayden has tried cases in state and federal court in Massachusetts and in Maine state court, obtaining defense verdicts in each jurisdiction. He has also successfully argued before the Massachusetts Appeals Court, the Appellate Division of the Massachusetts District Court and the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

MBA Service: In addition to serving as MBA vice president, Hayden has served on the MBA’s Executive Management Board and as chair of the MBA’s Judicial Administration Section Council from 2018 to 2021. In 2017 and 2018, he was a member of the section’s Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Diversity, which successfully introduced a resolution at the MBA’s House of Delegates supporting efforts to increase diversity in the court system. Hayden has frequently chaired sessions of the MBA’s “View from the Bench” continuing legal education series, which includes Massachusetts Superior Court and District Court judges as panelists. During the pandemic, Hayden has chaired six View From the Bench programs via Zoom, including a monthly series focused on how to advance civil cases during the pandemic. In addition, he has participated as a lecturer at various other MBA education courses, including its Practicing with Professionalism program.

Additional Service: Outside of the MBA, Hayden collaborated in the 2008 publication of a historical chronicle on esteemed commonwealth colonial lawyer Josiah Quincy Jr. Currently, Hayden is chair of Morrison Mahoney LLP’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, a position he has held for the last two years. 

Additional Information: Hayden lives in Quincy and has two daughters in middle school.

Samuel A. Segal

Treasurer

Firm: Founder at Law Offices of Samuel A. Segal in Boston

Education: B.S., Arcadia University, 2007; J.D., Northeastern University School of Law, 2010

Legal Career: Sam A. Segal is a personal injury attorney with over 10 years of litigation experience representing injured parties. He worked for five years at Breakstone, White & Gluck PC before opening his own practice, the Law Offices of Samuel A. Segal, in 2015.

MBA Service: In addition to serving as MBA treasurer, Segal is the former chair of both the MBA Young Lawyers Division and Lawyer Referral Service Committee. He regularly volunteers for both the MBA's Dial-A-Lawyer and Mock Trial programs, and he received the MBA's Volunteer Recognition Award in 2016.  

Additional Service: Outside of the MBA, Segal is a member of the Plaintiff's Practice and Outreach to Young Lawyers standing committees for the American Bar Association Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section, where he will be chair of the Coordination on Outreach to Young Lawyers. He also previously served as national affiliates director of the ABA Young Lawyers Division.

Additional Information: Segal worked for two years with exotic animals at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia Live Animal Center (he is trained in falconry and reptile/snake handling). He is beloved of his rats, will one day inherit a Hermann's Tortoise and has a special place in his heart for all exotic pets.

Shayla Mombeleur

Secretary

Firm: Associate at Todd & Weld LLP in Boston

Education: B.S. Bridgewater State University, 2012; J.D. University of Massachusetts School of Law, 2017

Legal Career: Shayla Mombeleur is an associate at Todd & Weld LLP and concentrates her practice on government investigations and criminal defense, with a focus on federal and health care cases. She defends clients during every stage of the criminal justice process, including trials, pre-trial motions and plea bargaining.

MBA Service: In addition to serving as MBA secretary, Mombeleur is a recent recipient of the MBA’s Access to Justice Race, Equity & Inclusion Award, a past recipient of the MBA’s Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Scholarship and a past participant in the MBA Leadership Academy. She currently serves as chair of the MBA’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee and is a member of the association’s Executive Management Board. To help advance DEI initiatives, she has created a variety of training sessions with members of the Massachusetts Trial Court and recently led a three-part webinar that focused on developing and maintaining a diverse network and workplace through supportive and inclusive environments.

Additional Service: Mombeleur previously served as a criminal defense public defender in the Boston office of the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), where she helped organize the public defender march in honor of George Floyd and later received the Emerging Defender Award. 

Additional Information: Mombeleur was a former missionary in Haiti during her college career.

Martin W. Healy

Chief Legal Counsel and Chief Operating Officer

Company: Massachusetts Bar Association

Education: B.S., Suffolk University, 1985; J.D., Suffolk University Law School, cum laude, 1988

Legal Career: Appointed as a National Uniform Law Commissioner for Massachusetts by Gov. Deval L. Patrick, Martin W. Healy is also a member of the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) Board, where he represents former House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo. Healy was honored with Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly's 2014 Lawyer of the Year award for his work in making attorney-conducted voir dire a reality in Massachusetts. He actively serves as a volunteer juvenile law attorney with the CPCS Youth Advocacy Project. He previously served as a hearing committee member with the Board of Bar Overseers and as an adjunct professor at Suffolk University in its Masters in Criminal Justice program. The Massachusetts Juvenile Bar Association (MJBA) presented Healy with its 2015 Chief Justice Francis G. Poitrast Award for his advocacy on behalf of the juvenile justice system, including his efforts to increase compensation for attorneys who handle juvenile cases through CPCS. Healy formerly served as a commonwealth of Massachusetts bar examiner for the Supreme Judicial Court. In 2019, Healy received the Beacon of Justice Award from the state's Equal Justice Coalition. He has been appointed to the Firearm Licensing Review Board by Gov. Charlie D. Baker. In 2020, Healy was sworn in by Baker as a commissioner to the governor’s special Supreme Judicial Court Nominating Commission. Prior to joining the MBA staff, Healy worked in the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office Appellate Division and as a legislative aide in the Massachusetts Senate.

MBA Service: Healy serves as the Massachusetts Bar Association's chief legal advisor, as well as the MBA's liaison to the legislative, executive and judicial branches. Healy is responsible for providing legal advice in corporate matters and legal support in issues of public policy concerning the practice of law and the administration of justice. In addition, he serves as counsel to the MBA leadership team and the MBA House of Delegates and Executive Management Board. In his capacity as a registered legislative and executive agent, Healy works with the MBA's sections and committees to analyze legislation, draft bills and amicus curiae briefs, and testify before legislative committees. Healy also serves as executive secretary to the Joint Bar Committee on Judicial Appointments, which confidentially reviews judicial candidates for the governor of the commonwealth.

Additional Service: A long-term member of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly's Board of Editors, Healy is a regular contributing columnist of the publication, writing the feature "Healy on the Hill."