Experienced Excellence
in Dispute Resolution
Judges ADR provides uniquely talented, efficient, and experienced mediators and arbitrators for worker’s compensation and employee retaliation protection cases.
Our Commitment
We are retired judges with extensive past experience presiding over and deciding the complicated legal issues in the areas of the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, the Defense Base Act, and all federal Whistleblower Acts. As a result, we bring specialized judicial knowledge, expertise, and insight to every mediation or arbitration hat we conduct, which we can do either in person or by video teleconference. We combine this expertise and experience with an uncompromising commitment to prepare and work as hard as possible to help the litigants in each of our mediations reach a case settlement. We always listen intently and completely to both sides in a mediation to fully understand all their personal, business, factual, and legal concerns. Our success records demonstrate this unwavering commitment to providing exceptional quality mediation services.
70+
Years of Legal Experience
6,000+
Cases Resolved as Judges
86%
Settlement Success Rate
Our Expertise
We believe the success of any mediation style always depends on one crucial skill: listening. Our careers as judges required us to intently listen and consider the disputes and positions of parties in contested litigation. After decades of presiding over cases, we are now highly effective professional listeners. We know an evaluation of a case is only as good as the information we obtain from the parties in mediation. Only then can we determine what is important to the parties and what kind of mediation style will work best for them.
Mediators usually use one of two kinds of mediation styles: Facilitative or Evaluative.
A facilitative mediator focuses solely on helping parties identify, discuss, and resolve the factual and legal issues in their case.
An evaluative mediator, not only identifies the contested facts and issues, but helps the parties individually evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the case as well as potential results at trial or hearing.
At Judges ADR we are specially qualified to provide either type of mediation style. During our careers as judges, we completed mediation training courses taught by expert instructors at the prestigious National Judicial College, and we are certified by the NJC in both Civil and Advanced Civil Mediation. Unlike almost all other mediators, our unique and extensive training, combined with our experience as judges, gives us the ability to successfully use either mediation style when necessary.
To succeed in our mediations, we use skills perfected during our careers as judges. As a result, we are always entirely prepared to discuss the key aspects of every case while also recognizing and appreciating the interests and goals of both parties at a mediation. We also understand the mindset and legal concerns a judge brings to a contested trial or hearing. This superior insight allows our mediators to help litigants make exceptionally informed mediation and settlement decisions.
Our Mediators’ Process
Opening Joint Session
A mediator uses this initial time for personal introductions, to explain details for the mediation process to be used, and to confirm the basic issues and topics the parties need to resolve during the mediation. Occasionally, the nature of a case lends itself to mediation without a joint session. This normally happens when the legal issues in the case are well defined and accepted by the parties. Mediation without a joint session is not a sign that a settlement is unlikely.
Caucus
At this stage, our mediators offer unique, specialized judicial insight that almost all other mediators cannot - we provide experienced observations about concerns and thoughts a judge might have with the contested issues of the case. A caucus is a closed, individual meeting with a party and their attorney, and the mediator discusses specific factual and legal issues and concerns a party may want to consider in deciding on settlement terms. At this phase, the mediator frequently moves back and forth between two offices to hold multiple individual meetings.
Closing Joint Session
For this last phase, in more than 80 percent of our mediations, the mediator and all parties gather to confirm the principal terms of their agreed settlement and plan to complete a detailed written agreement to be filed in the case. In the much less common event that mediation concludes without a settlement, the mediator may summarize the successful points agreed to by the parties so they can consider whether additional dispute resolution efforts would be successful.
What Our Clients Say
John Doe
John Doe