Forging Critical Pathways to Mediation Success: A Candid Conversation with Top Mediators

A critical factor in the success or failure of mediations is the choice of mediator. There is a reason some mediators are always booked and hard to schedule. Somehow, no matter how difficult the issues, no matter how contentious the claims, and no matter how challenging the dynamics, these mediators can find ways to bring cases brought before them to resolution. In a candid conversation with three top mediators, we will explore how they prepare for a successful mediation, how they manage their mediations to put them in line to succeed, how they deal with the typical and not so typical challenges presented, and the tricks of the trade they employ to achieve consistent successes in bringing the parties to settlement.  

Featured Speakers

Moderator: Peter Biging, Goldberg Segalla, LLP

• Peter Biging is an accomplished trial and appellate attorney with more than 30 years of experience as a litigator in the state and federal courts of New York. His practice focuses on litigation involving directors and officers, financial institutions and defense of management and professional liability claims, including the defense of a variety of professionals against errors and omissions claims, labor and employment practices litigation, commercial litigation, municipal liability litigation, and professional liability coverage work. His work as a litigator includes defending a variety of financial service professionals, including insurance agents and brokers, investment advisers, accountants, broker-dealers and their registered representatives. He also regularly represents lawyers, real estate and title agents, and a variety of miscellaneous professionals. Peter regularly handles complex, high-stakes commercial litigations and claims involving allegations of fraud or malfeasance, as well as litigations of non-solicitation/non-compete disputes. A partner in the firm's Manhattan offices, he heads up the Goldberg Segalla metro area Management and Professional Liability practice, and is Co-chair of the M&PL practice group nationally.
  
  Peter is widely recognized as an authority on D&O, management and professional liability, E&O, EPL, and professional liability coverage issues. In addition to regularly writing and presenting to national audiences on these topics, he is active in a number of organizations devoted to the education and development of lawyers involved in management & professional liability defense work, including his current role as a member of the Board of the Professional Liability Defense Federation (PLDF) (for which he currently serves as treasurer), various posts within the American Bar Association’s Tort, Trial & Insurance Practice Section (TIPS) (including his forthcoming ascension to Chair of the Editorial Board of The Brief, the TIPS flagship magazine), and his active participation in the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS), and the Claim and Litigation Management Alliance (CLM), for whom he has written numerous articles, given numerous presentations, and served on several committees. He is regularly recognized as a New York metro area Super Lawyer in Professional Liability Defense, is AV rated by Martindale Hubbell as having the highest levels of skill and integrity, and has been selected a Top 100 Bet the Company Litigator.

Panelist: Mark J. Bunim, Case Closure

• Mark J. Bunim has more than 40 years’ experience as an attorney, litigator, mediator and arbitrator. As an arbitrator he has acted as chair, sole arbitrator, or wing arbitrator in close to 100 arbitrations of insurance and commercial disputes, both domestic and international, under a variety of rules, principally those of the American Arbitration Association, and other ad hoc rules and procedures. More often than not he has served as panel chair or sole arbitrator and has also mediated approximately 400 insurance related disputes.
  
  Mr. Bunim’s arbitrations and mediations have involved a vast array of parties and industries, in the United States and in England. The subject matter has frequently been focused on the insurance industry both in terms of its actual business, the relationship between insurers and brokers/agents and disputes between insurance companies and policyholders. Mr. Bunim has also arbitrated a wide variety of commercial cases including contract disputes; partnership and joint-venture disputes, franchise and distribution rights; breach of warranty; executive and other employment disputes; professional liability; accounting disputes; healthcare; and technology disputes.
  
  Mr. Bunim is a Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators; a Diplomate Member of the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals and is the immediate former Co-Chair of the New York State Bar Assn. Insurance Dispute Committee.

Panelist: Theo Cheng, of The ADR Office of Theo Cheng

• • Theo Cheng is an independent, full-time mediator and arbitrator, focusing on commercial, intellectual property, entertainment, technology, and employment disputes. He has been appointed to the rosters of the American Arbitration Association, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, the CPR Institute, Resolute Systems, the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s List of Arbitrators and Mediators, and the Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center’s List of the World’s Leading Technology Neutrals. Theo is also a AAA Master Mediator and an Adjunct Professor at New York Law School. He is a member of the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals and a Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators.
  
  Theo has conducted over 700 arbitrations and mediations involving commercial and business disputes, breach of contract and negligence actions, trade secret theft, employment discrimination claims, wage-and-hour disputes, and intellectual property infringement contentions. The New Jersey State Bar Association Dispute Resolution Section presented Theo with the 2020 James B. Boskey ADR Practitioner of the Year Award, and the National Law Journal named him a 2017 ADR Champion. For the second consecutive year, he has been voted a Top Arbitrator in the New York Law Journal’s Best of Reader Rankings Survey. In 2021, he was voted the Best Mediator/Arbitrator in the New Jersey Law Journal’s Best of Reader Rankings Survey.

Panelist: Jennifer Lupo, Lupo Law, Arbitration and Mediation PLLC

• Jennifer Lupo is a distinguished neutral with more than 30 years' experience. Her areas of expertise lie in resolving business-to-business, complex commercial, employment and insurance disputes. She brings a unique perspective to her craft as a neutral because she has sat in each seat at the dispute resolution table; as a civil litigator, as a general counsel to private and public companies, and finally, as the neutral. Ms. Lupo is a member of the national commercial and employment arbitration and mediation rosters of the American Arbitration Association (AAA), the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR), the National Association of Distinguished Neutrals; and a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) arbitrator. She is also a member of mediation panels of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the United States District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County, Commercial Division, amongst others. Having mediated or arbitrated over one thousand cases to date, representative matters in the past five years are in the areas of: business divorce (and shareholder and member disputes), business-to-business, complex commercial, contracts (domestic and international), construction/engineering/architecture malpractice, employment (employee and executive), entertainment (music, theater, and film), financial institutions and investments, insurance, information technology, intellectual property, franchise, sports (boxing, baseball and football) and telecommunications.
  
  Jen is a AAA Higginbotham fellow, a Judith S. Kaye fellow of the Historical Society of the New York Courts, and a fellow of the New York Bar Foundation. She is an active member of several bar and dispute resolution organizations including Arbitral Women, ABA Dispute Resolution and Business Law Sections, NYSBA: Commercial and Federal Litigation, Business Law, Labor and Employment and is a founding member of the Dispute Resolution Section, where she is an Executive Committee member and co-chairs the arbitration committee. Ms. Lupo is a sought-after speaker who gives presentations regularly on issues pertaining to mediation and arbitration. Jen volunteers her time to Monday Night Law (a modest means law clinic of the NYCBAR) and mentors’ children in foster care, college (BardWorks), law school and new legal and ADR practitioners.
  Ms. Lupo has served as a wing, sole arbitrator, sole mediator, and co-mediator. She is available to mediate or arbitrate in person and via videoconferencing, internationally.
  
  Jennifer holds an A.B. from Bard College, an M.A. from SUNY Stony Brook, and a J.D. from Touro Law Center, with honors.

Continuing Legal Education Credit

Our sincere thanks to Goldberg Segalla, LLP for securing CLE credit in California, New Jersey, and New York. This course is approved for: 

• 1.0 California MCLE general credit hour
• 1.2 New Jersey CLE credit hour
• 1.0 New York CLE credit hour in the category of skills, and acceptable for both newly admitted and experienced attorneys.

Registration

PLDF is pleased to present this as a complimentary webinar. Our thanks to our speakers and Goldberg Segalla, LLP for their support of this event.