Reprinted with permission from The New York Law Journal. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. All rights reserved. Download a PDF of this article. Lawyers devote enormous time and care to crafting briefs. They refine arguments, polish language, and anticipate counterpoints. Yet even the most carefully written submission cannot fully answer a critical question: how… Read more »

Reprinted with permission from the February 18, 2026 issue of The New York Law Journal. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. All rights reserved. Download a PDF of this article. Imagine that you are a pilot, physician, lawyer, accountant, engineer, military commander, plumber, teacher, or anyone whose job is to make decisions. Now imagine that… Read more »

Reprinted with permission from the February 13, 2026 issue of The New York Law Journal. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. All rights reserved. Download a PDF of this article.. Mediator’s proposals have long occupied a contested space in mediation practice. For some neutrals, they are an indispensabletool for breaking impasse; for others, they raise… Read more »

Reprinted with permission from the January 16, 2026 issue of The New York Law Journal. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. All rights reserved. Download a PDF of this article.. As the impacts of our changing climate become more apparent, litigation has emerged as one of the primary tools for holding fossil fuel companies and… Read more »

This article originally published in the Connecticut Law Tribune. Click here for the PDF. The American Bar Association recently issued Formal Opinion 518 addressing the ethical obligations of lawyers serving as third-party neutral mediators. While the Model Rules of Professional Conduct have long included provisions governing lawyer-mediators, Opinion 518 interprets those existing rules to address,… Read more »

This article originally published in the Daily Journal. Click here for the PDF. The SEC now allows mandatory arbitration in IPOs, reshaping litigation risk for public issuers, raising governance and insurance questions, and making expert, well-structured arbitration crucial for fair, efficient resolution of securities disputes. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s September 2025 policy shift… Read more »

Reprinted with permission from the October 28, 2025 issue of the New York Law Journal. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. All rights reserved. Download a PDF of this article. Experienced lawyers are creatures of habit. They sometimes overlook that clients have the freedom at any time to design dispute resolution procedures that work best… Read more »

Reprinted with permission from the September 30, 2025 issue of Law.com. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. All rights reserved. Download a PDF of this article. In complex disputes, mediators sometimes fall into the trap of rushing too quickly toward numbers—talking demands, offers, and bottom lines before the mediation has even had a chance to… Read more »

This article originally published in NYU Law’s Democracy Project. Click here for the PDF. In this essay for the Democracy Project, FedArb panelist David F. Levi looks back on his time mediating a dispute for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant permit in New Mexico. He shares how citizen groups, government officials and contractors worked together… Read more »

This article originally published in the New York Law Journal. Click here for the PDF. Mediating every case requires digging into the case, active listening to the parties, good communication and sensitivity on the part of the mediator. But the billion-dollar case or even those involving multiple hundreds of millions of dollars are often company-threatening… Read more »

This article originally published in the New York Law Journal. Click here for the PDF. When I began practicing securities litigation nearly 40 years ago, the landscape was vastly different. Accounting fraud dominated the headlines, plaintiffs’ firms were relatively few and far between, repeat plaintiffs were common, class actions were quickly filed with little pre-suit… Read more »

This article originally published in the Legal Intelligencer. Click here for the PDF. Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming de rigueur in the legal community, with law firms and lawyers independently utilizing a variety of AI resources to streamline research, formulate documents and digest discovery, exhibits, depositions and fee details. In arbitration, AI may expedite proceedings… Read more »

A successful mediation requires sensitivity and attention to the needs of each side, but mediating executive or key employee disputes requires some specific considerations and alertness to sensitivities that merit discussion. It’s a Person’s Career After All! First, and foremost, we are dealing with a person’s career –the place where the person has spent a… Read more »

In 1978, former President Jimmy Carter established the National Commission for the Review of Antitrust Laws and Procedures to recommend ways to expedite litigation, improve remedies, and review certain immunities and exceptions. As the late Arthur Austin, my former antitrust law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, observed, however, the commission was… Read more »