EXPERIENCE 

Attorney Fitzgerald has practiced exclusively as an arbitrator and mediator since 2003. He is a member of the American Arbitration Association Large Complex Case Panel of Arbitrators and of the CPR International Institute for Dispute Resolution’s California Regional Panel of Arbitrators.

He has worked in alternate dispute resolution for many years, as both an advocate and as a neutral.  He was a member of the Panel of Arbitrators of the American Arbitration Association in Connecticut from 1970 to 1985. By appointment of the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, he served as an Attorney Trial Referee in the Connecticut Superior Court from 1982 to 1985, adjudicating bench trials in the highest trial court of that state and acting as a court settlement officer. After relocating his practice to Los Angeles in 1985, he served on the ADR panel of the Los Angeles Superior Court from 1994 to 2006 as both an arbitrator and a mediator.

Recent ADR Cases

Recent cases which Attorney Fitzgerald has heard as an arbitrator include:

• A three way contract dispute in the aviation industry involving the  manufacture and sale of jet engine parts; 
• Antitrust, breach of contract and defamation in the consumer credit rating industry;
• Action for realtor's commission on sale of and  joint venture for  residential housing development;
• A breach of contract dispute between a supplier  of blood plasma and a pharmaceutical company;
• A contract dispute between an importer of apparel and a warehousing and distribution company;
• Fraud and breach of fiduciary duty claims against the managing member of a commercial real estate LLC;
• A shareholder derivative action in the food business;
• Dissolution of a professional services partnership and accounting for assets;
• Fraud and breach of contract claim  by lessee against lessor of farmland for organic farming.
• An architectural malpractice action. 

Cases recently mediated by Mr. Fitzgerald include:

• Dispute between licensor and licensee of medical device patents;
• Trade secrets and noncompetition dispute in the securities industry;
• Breach of contract between a franchisor and a franchisee;
• Dissolution of a professional partnership;
• Wrongful termination;
• Professional malpractice claim against Forensic CPA;
• Two medical malpractice surgical cases;
• Four legal malpractice actions in the litigation context.

Attorney Fitzgerald has been an advocate in ADR proceedings before AAA, JAMS, NASD and other facilitators in many venues, including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, and Hartford. His ADR acvocacy in arbitration includes:

• Litigating ownership rights to a large Los Angeles commercial property;
• Litigating the value of an international business in a forced buyout triggered by a joint venture dissolution;
• Defending claims of fraud and non-competition violation by an international trade show;
• Prosecuting a coverage claim against a state Insurance Guarantee Fund to recover sums paid by an insured to settle mass disaster litigation.

His former firm was National Coordinating Counsel for a lead defendant in the MDL Silicone Breast Implant litigation. As administrator of the client’s national defense, he was involved in claims resolution with the MDL Houston Claims Facility and the MDL Independent Settlement Program at Duke University Law School. He negotiated settlement of over 3,000 breast implant cases in many jurisdictions including Texas, Louisiana, California, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, West Virginia, Minnesota, Kansas and Connecticut.

As a trial lawyer, he was lead counsel in more than 100 jury and bench trials and arbitrations.  His work in litigation, arbitration, and mediation, as an advocate and as a neutral, has involved many fields of law, including: antitrust,business and commercial disputes, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, defamation, fraud, partnership and joint venture dissolutions,  shareholder actions, business valuation buyout issues,  complex real estate litigation, real property valuation, insurance, product liability, professional liability, construction, wrongful termination, healthcare, class actions, mass tort and broker/dealer matters, among others.

Attorney Fitzgerald has appellate experience in the Supreme Courts of Connecticut and Nevada, the United States Court of Appeals, 2^nd Circuit, and the California and Connecticut Courts of Appeal.

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