ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION

Our lawyers recognize that a court trial is not necessarily the best mechanism for resolving every dispute. We therefore have developed skills to represent our clients in the many dispute resolution methods currently used by courts and private parties. These include mediation, early neutral evaluation of claims, arbitration, med-arb, private judging, summary jury trials and one-on-one negotiation.

Because of the rising popularity of alternative dispute resolution, several of our attorneys have developed active practices serving as neutral mediators, evaluators and arbitrators in court-annexed and privately administered and non-administered proceedings. Cases successfully resolved have ranged from multi-million dollar employee benefits and construction claim cases to cases settled without the payment of any funds. Our attorneys have been trained by leading experts in the dispute resolution field, including the American Arbitration Association, the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution and the Association of Attorney-Mediators.

Our attorneys themselves have trained prospective neutrals for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, and have participated in the development of court rules and systems to make alternative dispute resolution services available to parties who can benefit from them. We were recently honored to have one of our partners, Andrew Natale, receive the prestigious Construction Golden Gavel Award from the American Arbitration Association for his outstanding contribution to the ADR field.