In the following guest post, Greg Markel and Sarah Fedner take a look at the characteristics of securities class action lawsuits that made securities suit mediations different from mediations in other types of litigated matters, as well as the practical implications of those differences. Markel is Securities Litigation co-Chair and Partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP and Fedner is a Senior Managing Associate at Seyfarth Shaw LLP. A version of this article previously was published in the New York Law Journal. I would like to thank Greg and Sarah for allowing me to publish their article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Greg and Sarah’s article.
As is well known, civil litigation in the U.S. can be expensive, time-consuming and burdensome. Despite these obvious drawbacks, countless insurance disputes wind up in litigation, imposing costs and burdens on policyholders, claimants, and insurers. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms – such as arbitration, mediation, settlement conferences, and appraisal – allow the parties to insurance disputes to avoid the expense and burdens of trying to address a dispute in court. A new book published by the American Bar Association entitled “Resolving Insurance Claims Disputes Before Trial” (