Mediation Advocacy

Our mediation experience includes:

• Helping create and implement the ADR procedures employed at many Superfund sites, where a neutral mediator or allocator determines the division of liability and cost sharing and using these procedures to resolve disputes over large sums for clients that would otherwise engage in expensive and risky cost recovery and contribution litigation involving scores of parties.
• Settling through mediation, before the commencement of discovery, numerous property damage claims and cross-claims arising from alleged underground storage tank contamination on behalf of a real estate.
• Using mediation efficiently in numerous toxic tort cases arising out of environmental activities.
• Using mediation to successfully obtain multi-million dollar intellectual property agreements related to our clients’ proprietary products.

Arbitration Advocacy

Our arbitration experience includes:

• Securing a favorable arbitration decision for a municipal client against claims from a private developer of a proposed waste-to-ethanol facility where the developer sought damages in excess of $300 million under a number of contract, tort, and constitutional claims, all of which we successfully defended during an extensive discovery period and evidentiary hearing, and we won an award that compelled the developer to reimburse our client for its arbitration fees.
• Procuring multi-million dollar financial awards for R&D clients in protecting their intellectual property through data compensation arbitrations against generic companies under the United States’ pesticide law, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

Service as Neutrals in Mediation and Arbitration

We have served as neutrals, with experience including:

• Successfully mediating cases including:
  • A one-day mediation allocating $40 million in Superfund cleanup costs, occurring on the eve of trial after several months of pre-trial.
  • CERCLA wartimes claims cases brought against the United States government.
  • Breach of contract disputes, mergers and acquisitions, fraud, False Claims Act, qui tam and whistleblower matters, Privacy Act, national security and defense contracting, business and law partnerships, real estate partnerships, service contracts, intellectual property, software, international energy supply arrangements, nuclear decontamination, bank services, and surety contracts.
• Arbitrating cases as members or chairs of panels in complex disputes including commercial breach of contract, medical supply services, telecommunications, law firm dissolution, copyright royalty, patents, estates, parent/subsidiary issues involving a major U.S. hospital system, and a host of other complex matters.