Best Lawyers in America for Alternative Dispute Resolution
Select a location from the list below to find the best legal talent for your needs.
State
Russell F. Hilliard is a top attorney recognized by Best Lawyers in the practice area(s) of Commercial Litigation, Insurance Law, Litigation - Insurance and Mediation. Russell F., who practices law in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has been recognized since 1997. This recognition is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey, reflecting the high esteem in which Russell F. is held by other top lawyers in the same geographic and legal practice area.
Jesse Gessin is trial counsel for businesses and individuals. He is the rare attorney who successfully tries both civil and criminal cases. For example, his multimillion-dollar jury verdict was recognized as the highest California verdict in several categories for that year. He entered the case only a few months before trial. In 2022, hired less than ten days before trial, Jesse achieved a complete defense verdict for a successor trustee against multimillion-dollar claims of wrongful investme...
Area of Emphasis Kip Power is a shareholder in the Energy and Natural Resources and Litigation groups of Babst Calland. Mr. Power helps clients comply with environmental laws and defend related litigation while keeping their businesses running profitably. He regularly represents companies when permitting and enforcement disputes arise and prosecutes civil actions and appeals challenging unlawful agency actions. Over the course of his career, he has successfully negotiated favorable resolution...
Harold Stephens is a litigation attorney in the firm's Huntsville office. He began his practice in 1980 as an Assistant United States Attorney in Birmingham. For more than twenty years, he has handled a variety of civil litigation, both at the trial and appellate level. In his litigation practice, Harold has defended numerous products liability claims involving forklifts, chainsaws, logging equipment, medical devices, computer software and hardware, punch presses, farm equipment, electrical d...
About Cynthia Cynthia L. Ciancio is a founding shareholder of Ciancio Ciancio Brown, P.C. She also heads up the firm’s Family Law Group. Ms. Ciancio’s practice specializes in high asset divorces and complex child custody disputes. She is also a certified mediator conducting both mediations and arbitrations for parties with or without lawyers. With over 20 years of experience exclusively in family law, and another four years prior as a Deputy District Attorney in Adams County, Ms. ...
In his over 30 years of practice, Alan Freed has established himself as one of Missouri's pre-eminent practitioners of mediation and collaborative divorce , and as a leading appellate attorney. Mr. Freed was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers in 2009 and is listed in Missouri/Kansas Super Lawyers. Best Lawyers named him Attorney of the Year for Collaborative Law: Family Law in St. Louis in 2013 and for Family Law Mediation for 2015. A mediator since 1985, Mr. Free...
Margaret has over twenty-five years of experience concentrating on high-asset and complex divorce cases. Margaret’s clients include business owners, public figures, elected officials, executives of publicly traded companies, successful inventors, tech entrepreneurs, attorneys, doctors, dentists, retirees, those with generational wealth, and many others. Her cases regularly involve issues relating to the valuation and division of complex assets such as business interests, private equity,...
Trial lawyer Robert MacGill has represented Fortune 50 companies, city and state governments, businesses with high-stakes legal issues, and top athletes in resolving complicated matters through negotiation or trial. Rob's trial and appellate results are found in a variety of reported cases. Rob represents U.S. and foreign-domiciled companies at trial and before appellate courts throughout the country. He has represented clients in antitrust matters pending throughout the United States. He has...
Stew Cogan is in his thirty-first year as a full-time arbitrator and mediator, following twenty years practicing primarily business, corporate, and real estate law. Stew has arbitrated more than 300 cases and mediated more than 3,500 cases. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America in both the Mediation and Arbitration categories, and is Ranked Tier 1 in both categories in the Metropolitan Seattle area. He was named by Best Lawyers as the Arbitration Lawyer of the Year in Seattle in 2016, 2...
I. C. (Jack) Waddey, Jr. is co-founder and senior attorney at the Firm, instrumental in its growth from three lawyers to 15 patent professionals in 20 years. He represents clients as an adviser in developing their intellectual property portfolios, as a patent and trademark advocate, and as mentor to start-up organizations. He is trained, certified and active locally, regionally and nationally as a mediator. He is listed as an approved Rule 31 Mediator by the Supreme Court of the State of Tenn...
Gary D. Eisenstat is a top attorney recognized by Best Lawyers in the practice area(s) of Commercial Litigation, Employment Law - Management, Labor Law - Management, Litigation - Labor and Employment and Mediation. Gary D., who practices law in Dallas, Texas, has been recognized since 2008. This recognition is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey, reflecting the high esteem in which Gary D. is held by other top lawyers in the same geographic and legal practice area.
Costa Pleicones, former Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court, advises Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd clients on complex litigation and appellate matters. He is a Certified Circuit Court Arbitrator and Mediator and his experiences as a successful practitioner, trial judge and appellate jurist allow him to provide skillful and effective dispute resolution services.
With many significant roles in the New York state court system, Betty Weinberg Ellerin embodies attorney excellence. She currently sits on a committee that screens and recommends candidates for gubernatorial appointment to the Court of Claims and is vice chair of the court system's Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics. Justice Weinberg Ellerin served more than 20 years as an Appellate Division jurist. She was the first woman appointed as Deputy Chief Administrative Judge of the State of New ...
Abbey Kaplan is a seasoned trial lawyer known for taking on complex cases and crafting creative strategies for tackling the most complicated legal issues in commercial litigation and business tort cases. A Founding Member of Kluger Kaplan, Abbey has extensive experience handling partnership and corporate breakups, real estate development disputes including banking and broker controversies, professional liability disputes, corporate finance issues, contract disputes and intellectual property. ...
Garrick Gallagher joined the firm in 1988, and is a Shareholder, Director and Past President (2000-2006) of the firm. Mr. Gallagher earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Arizona College of Law in 1984, and his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981. Mr. Gallagher concentrates his practice on complex civil litigation throughout Arizona, the United States, and abroad. He has been interviewed by Dateline NBC, local news networks, the Los Angeles Times,...
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.