"I think I can speak for the entire team when I say that we all thoroughly enjoyed our experience, thanks in no small part to the thoughtful and terrific job you did in facilitating the process. In particular, I believe your expertise with employment cases and willingness to hear our client’s full story were very helpful in setting expectations and bringing him to settlement.”

"I don't know anybody any better at arriving at a balanced view of a problem than Mr. Weil...His ability to understand the other side of an issue has made him in my judgment an exceptionally insightful individual.”

With four decades’ experience as an attorney representing clients in lawsuits and transactions and twenty-five years of ADR experience, Rick Weil knows how to help attorneys and their clients achieve satisfactory, cost-effective outcomes to even the most intransigent disputes.

Rick’s experience has given him a breadth of legal knowledge and an understanding of the human factors that underlie many conflicts.

• He has mediated over 500 cases in New York, New Jersey and California.
• By court appointment, he has served as a mediator, arbitrator, neutral evaluator, Special Master and Judge Pro Tem.
• As an attorney, he represented clients in mediations, arbitrations, judicial settlement conferences and settlement negotiations with other lawyers.

A key element of Rick’s process is working with counsel to design and conduct mediations in ways that best serve their clients, tailoring the process to reflect the amount at stake, the importance of the case to the clients and their budgets.

• Before the mediation, Rick holds a conference call with counsel to learn what the case is about, why it is important to their clients, who will attend the mediation and what information each party needs to make the mediation successful.
• He asks each party to submit a mediation statement summarizing the core facts and critical law and requests counsel to explain how their claimed money damages are calculated. After reviewing the statements, Rick may contact counsel to clarify certain points, identify options for and obstacles to settlement and get their thoughts on how to make the mediation most productive.
• At the mediation, Rick is able to put people at ease and to understand and convey different points of view. He helps parties explore their cases’ strengths and weaknesses, assess the risks and costs of continued litigation and focus on what is most important to them.
• When agreement is reached, Rick helps the parties put it in writing to make it final, binding and enforceable.
• Rick is persistent. If the mediation session does not result in settlement, he continues to engage with the attorneys and their clients.

Above all, Rick is committed to helping people find satisfactory ways to resolve disputes in a timely, cost-effective manner.

Rick is an active member of the New York mediation community, serving on the Executive Committee of the State Bar Dispute Resolution Section, the City Bar ADR Committee and the Mediation Advisory Committees of thkje Federal Southern District Court and the State Commercial Court. He spearheaded a survey of New York litigators’ views on mediation for the State and City Bars, chaired a CLE program on effective mediation advocacy and wrote a booklet on how mediation can benefit businesses. His articles about mediation have been published in the ABA Dispute Resolution Journal, the New York Law Journal and CPR’s magazine “Alternatives.”