Best Lawyers in America for Alternative Dispute Resolution
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State
Terence O’Toole is a Director of the Starn O’Toole Marcus & Fisher law firm. He manages the firm’s litigation department and has over 50 years of experience in the area of commercial and complex litigation. Mr. O'Toole has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America ® , as a "Lawyer of the Year" in Honolulu in the practice areas of Bet-The-Company (2011, 2019, 2023) , Banking & Finance Litigation (2012, 2015, 2024) , Appellate Practice (2014, 2018, 2022, 2024)...
Valecia McDowell is a national thought leader in the areas of governmental and internal investigations, conduct risk management, and civil rights and racial equity assessments. Valecia is ranked in Chambers USA and Best Lawyers , included in national publications such as Bloomberg , American Banker , Corporate Compliance Insights , and Inside Counsel. Valecia was one of the ten “Innovative Legal Practitioners” identified by the London-based Financial Times in 2023 and on Forbes To...
Elizabeth Germani has more than 30 years of litigation experience in Maine and New Hampshire. She specializes in civil trial work, representing both plaintiffs and defendants in a wide variety of matters, including insurance defense, insurance coverage, products liability, personal injury, attorney malpractice, fire losses, construction litigation, business litigation and contract disputes. She practices in all the state and federal courts in Maine and New Hampshire, and before the state boar...
Robert L. Holzberg, Connecticut Superior Court Judge (Ret.), leads the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) practice at Pullman & Comley, and possesses extensive experience serving as a mediator and arbitrator in complex civil matters in state and federal court including personal injury, employment, construction, environmental, probate, insurance and commercial disputes. He retired from the bench in September 2012 after more than 22 years of service as a Superior Court judge. Retired Judg...
Area of Emphasis Mark Shepard is a shareholder in the Litigation Group of Babst Calland and currently serves as general counsel to the Firm. Prior to joining the firm, he served as chair of the litigation group for one of Pittsburgh’s largest law firms. Background as a Litigator Mr. Shepard focuses his practice in the areas of commercial, toxic tort, products liability and environmental litigation. He has represented clients as lead trial counsel in a variety of complex commercial litig...
Matthew “Matty” A. Lopes Jr. is Managing Principal of Pannone Lopes Devereaux & O’Gara LLC. For most of his 35-year legal career, he has been actively involved in the court oversight of correctional systems and is a nationally recognized Special Master in correctional reform litigation. For the past 26 years, he has served as the Special Master for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in the matter of Coleman v. Newsom. As Special Master in this...
George is passionate about achieving the best practical result, but he tries not to lose sight of humor and humanity in the process. He has been practicing law for over four decades and focuses on litigating, arbitrating, and mediating business and construction disputes. His trial experience is extensive and multi-faceted, before juries and arbitrators alike throughout New England and New York, including numerous construction and design claims, some involving tens of millions of dollars; prod...
Chalk is a 1973 graduate of University of Texas School of Law (J.D.), with prior M.A. (1967) and B.S. (1962) degrees from Tennessee Tech University, and A.A. degree (1956) from Freed-Hardeman College. Prior to joining in 1986 Whitaker Chalk Swindle & Schwartz PLLC, Fort Worth, Texas, and its predecessors, Chalk was President of Dabney Capital, Dallas, Texas (1984-86) (real estate finance), General Counsel and Vice President of LaJet, Inc., Abilene, Texas (1978-84) (petroleum refining and ...
Tony Paganelli is the founder and managing attorney at Paganelli Law Group , a mid-sized firm with offices in Indianapolis and Bloomington, Indiana. For over 30 years, he has practiced in the areas of business and real estate litigation, mediation, and business law. He also frequently advises corporate officers, senior executives, and professionals on employment law matters. Born and raised in Northwest Indiana, Tony was the first person in his family to go to college. He is a 1992 graduate o...
After leading BigLaw teams for years in high stakes and precedent setting cases in U.S. courts and international arbitration tribunals, Mr. Chao in May 2019 launched a boutique enabling him to sit as arbitrator, mediator, and special master, and to handle selected litigation matters. He was a partner for 29 years at a 1,000 lawyer global firm, where he founded and led the international litigation and arbitration practice; and for 6 years, he served as the U.S. head of the international arbitr...
Matt Hjortsberg is skilled at assisting clients in managing complex problems from “black swan events” to complex legal issues and multi-party negotiations. He has extensive experience representing commercial contractors, subcontractors, design professionals and owners in disputes, including construction delay, impact and defect claims. Regardless of the nature of the dispute, Matt brings the same core skills to each matter to help clients mitigate and manage risk. An unusually qui...
Judge Moore co-leads AZA’s appellate practice group. He has prosecuted more than 100 appeals in state and federal courts. In one day in 2021, Judge Moore argued two governmental-immunity cases back-to-back in the Texas Supreme Court. He won both. The two cases he argued are City of San Antonio v. Armando D. Rioja and City of San Antonio v. Jimmy Maspero . Judge Moore is a go-to lawyer for high-stakes, high-profile, complex litigation. (He recently represented Ben & Jerry’s and...
Julian Modesti is Co-Leader of the Business Litigation practice group at Harris Beach Murtha, based in Syracuse, New York. With over 30 years of experience, Julian has a substantial background in both state and federal court matters related to commercial litigation. These include handling disputes among shareholders, partners, and members, addressing business separations, lease and land-use issues, contract disputes, and safeguarding trade secrets as well as dealing with unfair competition an...
Charles C. Abut is a top attorney recognized by Best Lawyers in the practice area(s) of Arbitration, Family Law, Family Law Mediation and Mediation. Charles C., who practices law in Hackensack, New Jersey, has been recognized since 2001. This recognition is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey, reflecting the high esteem in which Charles C. is held by other top lawyers in the same geographic and legal practice area.
Our Methodology
Recognition by Best Lawyers is based entirely on peer review. Our methodology is designed to capture, as accurately as possible, the consensus opinion of leading lawyers about the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same geographical area and legal practice area.
The Process
Best Lawyers employs a sophisticated, conscientious, rational, and transparent survey process designed to elicit meaningful and substantive evaluations of the quality of legal services. Our belief has always been that the quality of a peer review survey is directly related to the quality of the voters.