ALAN HOWARD, ESQ.
SSAM ADR Commercial Mediator
Partner | Perkins Coie, LLP

Seasoned trial attorney, Alan Howard, Partner, Commercial Litigation at Perkins Coie, embodies SSAM’s Modern Mindset of Commercial Mediation.

Throughout a prolific litigation career spanning over three decades, Howard has represented Fortune 500 companies and international, financial, technology, manufacturing, transportation, and environmental institutions. Howard’s commercial mediation practice is recognized for providing state-of-the-art solutions in high stakes commercial disputes.

A graduate of Harvard Law and Yale University, Howard actively represents clients in complex contractual matters, cross-border litigation, and international arbitration related to manufacturing, production and distribution of goods, technology and software issues, domestic and global joint ventures, cyber security & privacy, intellectual property, energy, corporate governance, and financial markets. Howard has experience counseling financial institutions on anti-money laundering regulations, fiduciary duty and compliance and has defended individual companies and shareholders in class action suits.

Maintaining a robust pro bono practice, Alan has been recognized for his social service by the American Bar Association, The American Lawyer, Financial Times, and Public Justice, naming him Trial Lawyer of the Year.

EDWIN M. BAUM, ESQ.
SSAM ADR Commercial Mediator
Partner | Perkins Coie, LLP

Utilizing a wealth of trial and appellate advocacy experience, Edwin Baum, Partner, Commercial Litigation at Perkins Coie, represents large private and public companies in complex business litigation. Baum brings a critical level of currency and modernity to his SSAM Commercial Mediation practice, providing strategies and guidance informed by the ever-evolving priorities in corporate governance today.

Baum regularly defends leading corporations, their directors and special committees in class and shareholder actions involving securities laws, breach of fiduciary duty, merger and acquisition transactions, antitrust, product and consumer liability, trade secret protection and employment laws. He provides strategic counsel on transactional matters and business planning, assessing potential liability and developing action plans to prevent or minimize litigation risks. Baum works regularly with clients in a broad range of business sectors including in financial services, private equity, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, information technology, automotive, transportation and industrial products.

Baum has been helping parties resolve disputes for decades. He began by mediating employment-related disputes while in government service before law school. In addition to serving in the years since as advocate and neutral in near countless mediations of business disputes, Baum writes and teaches extensively about dispute resolution, and serves as a member of the Advisory Board of Cornell’s Scheinman Institute of Conflict Resolution.
At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, Baum and his law firm partner and fellow SSAM Commercial Mediator, Alan Howard, published a series of podcasts that provided practical guidance on conducting mediations remotely using teleconference technology. Their podcast series introduced practitioners to what was, for many, a new concept that almost overnight became a primary mode of mediation.

A graduate of Columbia Law and Cornell University, Baum has sat on multiple committees of the New York City and State Bar Associations, and on the boards and as chief executive officer of local and global non-profit organizations and academic institutions.

TRACEE E. DAVIS, ESQ.
SSAM ADR Commercial Mediator
Partner | Seyfarth Shaw, LLP

Trial attorney, Tracee E. Davis, Partner, Commercial Litigation at Seyfarth Shaw LLP, combines expertise across multiple legal and business disciplines to implement innovative solutions to complex commercial disputes.

“I’m a business lawyer and litigator who knows how to assess and address complex issues on behalf of both large corporate clients and financial institutions”, says Davis, “As a mediator, I combine this body of experience, an extensive understanding across a wide spectrum of law and commerce, with an insider’s approach to help foster practical, meaningful solutions in resolving complex commercial issues”.

Throughout her multi-decade litigation career, Davis has represented Fortune 500 companies with a particular focus on traditional financial institutions, fintech start-ups, global insurance institutions, as well as SAS, cybersecurity, and supply chain management firms.

Davis is considered an expert of matters of ESG-integrated data privacy and data security enforcement, AI technology’s impact on domestic and global corporations, corporate governance and business dissolution and employment and diversity law.  Davis has a deep breadth of experience in class action defense and commercial litigation for large institutional clients.  Prior to her joining Seyfarth, Davis spent six years as lead attorney in the Commercial Division of New York State Court system, presiding over 400 cases and associated settlement conferences.

In 2021, Davis was named to New York State’s 2021 “Law Power 100” list and was Appointed Chair of New York City Bar’s Judiciary Committee.  Davis served on the Ethics Commission of New York’s Unified Court system.

JIM QUINN, ESQ.
SSAM ADR Commercial Mediator

James W. Quinn is recognized as an accomplished trial, arbitration, and mediation lawyer in New York, the nation, and internationally. As a SSAM ADR Commercial Mediator, and though his own firm,JW Quinn ADR LLC, Quinn offers clients more than 45 years of experience as the counsel of choice for established clients facing high-profile, high-stakes, and international disputes.

Quinn spent his entire career at Weil, Gotshal& Manges LLP, a premier international law firm based in New York City. At Weil, he served for more than two decades as head of the firm’s 350-attorney Litigation Department and as a member of the firm’s Management Committee.

Quinn practiced in all areas of complex litigation and alternative dispute resolution, with particular emphasis on:

• Antitrust
• Securities
• False Advertising
• Sports
• Entertainment
• Patent
• Related Complex Intellectual Property Litigation

He also developed extensive experience as an arbitration lawyer under, among others, ICC and AAA International rules.Across his career, Quinn participated in dozens of mediations as an advocate and mediation lawyer.

In recent years, he has successfully mediated several highly confidential, high-stakes disputes involving large multi-national companies. With his extensive trial experience, he is uniquely qualified to assist parties in mediating and settling complex commercial disputes.

Throughout the past decade and beyond, Mr. Quinn has established himself as a leading commercial litigator with a string of impressive wins for such global corporate clients as Exxon Mobile, Vivendi, Disney, UnitedHealth Group, Johnson & Johnson, Marvel Entertainment, Proctor & Gamble, Arthur Anderson & ESPN,
Mr. Quinn’s most recent notable engagements include obtaining for CBS the dismissal with prejudice of a landmark putative class action in which current and former NCAA Division I college football and basketball players alleged that CBSprofited from the broadcast and use of those Student-Athletes’ names, likenesses and images without permission.

Mr. Quinn has earned a reputation with his clients for his unmatched experience in sports and entertainment litigation. He is the most successful andinfluential litigator of sports antitrust cases in the quarter-century that these cases have been played out in the national arena. Mr. Quinn has counseled and represented players associations in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer. Mr. Quinn served as the lead counsel for the NFL players in their successful antitrust challenge to the player restrictions in the League (McNeil v. NFL).
Mr. Quinn received his BA from the University of Notre Dame and his LLB from Fordham University School of Law, where he is currently teaching

Among many honors and awards, Mr. Quinn was selected in 1993 and 2004 by The National Law Journal as one of the ten top trial lawyers in the United States in its annual feature, “Winning: Successful Strategies From 10 of the Nation’s Top Litigators” (only a handful of lawyers have ever been selected twice for this prestigious award).
Mr. Quinn is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the American College of Trial Lawyers and a member of the International Society of Barristers. He is also a Fellow of The New York Bar Foundation. He has chaired a variety of committees of both The American Bar Association and The Bar Association of The City of New York. He is a member of the Advisory Board of The National Judicial College and the Panel of Distinguished Neutrals of the Center for Public Resources

WILLIAM H. GRONER, ESQ.
SSAM ADR Commercial Mediator

William H. Groner is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of SSAM. Prior, Bill had 35+ years of experience in personal injury and construction law representing personal injury clients as well as insurance and surety companies. During those years Bill participated in hundreds of negotiations involving over One Billion dollars in settlements, with an extensive number of mediations and trials.

Bill handled the 9/11 mass tort litigation representing over 10,000 ground zero responders who were exposed to toxins and contaminants post 9/11. He was a principal negotiator in the decade long litigation which resulted in settlements in excess of $900,000,000.

During his career, Bill has lectured on topics ranging from mediation to ethics to law firm management. Bill has recently been an Adjunct Faculty member at Boston University School of Law teaching a course for 3 years on the Ground Zero mass tort. He has made numerous radio and TV appearances including 20/20 ABC News, CNN (Worldwide), Good Day NY, Fox, and CBS.

Bill has been repeatedly selected as a New York Super Lawyer, characterized as a ‘rating service of outstanding lawyers who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.’ Bill also enjoys the maximum rating available (AV-5.0) from Martindale-Hubbell, which denotes the “highest level of professional excellence.”

MICHAEL STARR, ESQ.
SSAM ADR Commercial Mediator

Michael Starr has served as a court-appointed mediator and early neutral evaluator for federal and state courts in New York City for over 25 years. Before becoming a full-time neutral, he was a partner at national law firms engaging in complex civil litigation for a range of both employment and commercial matters.

A fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, Mr. Starr’s nationwide practice focused on employment law litigation and counseling. Often engaged for cutting-edge issues of substantial client importance, he has been recognized by Chamber US and others for his strategic thinking, legal analysis and broad knowledge of employment law.

In the course of his litigation practice, Mr. Starr has litigated a range of commercial disputes involving shareholder agreements, franchises and distributorships, real estate appraisals, corporate acquisition and earn-outs, antitrust and unfair competition, bankruptcy and reorganization, and other business-to-business matters.
He is a member of the roster of neutral for the NYS Supreme Court Commercial Divisions for New York and Suffolk counties, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the SDNY.

Drawing on his years of experience mediating labor disputes, Michael Starr practices facilitative mediation. Believing that in the practical affairs of life, there is no such thing as good or bad, only better or worse than the alternative, his goal in mediation is to assist the parties in finding a mutually acceptable outcome that is, for each side, better than the alternative of continuing to litigate.

LAURENCE A. LEVY, ESQ.
SSAM ADR Commercial Mediator
Greenberg Traurig

Seasoned attorney, Laurence (Larry) A. Levy of Greenberg Traurig, defines SSAM’s Modern Mindset of Commercial Mediation through his focused practice on contemporary political law, commercial development, corporate & governmental ethics, white collar investigation and global anti-corruption enforcement.

Across a prolific litigation and counseling career of more than four decades, Larry has served three New York City Mayors as Special Counsel, as well as Inspector General of the City’s Law Department. As Deputy Counsel to the Mayor he participated in all aspects of city governance, including, economic-development, major litigation, and emergency/crisis management.

Levy has represented multi-national and US financial, technology environmental and non-profit institutions, while advising Fortune 500 companies on regulatory matters before federal and state agencies, internal investigations, white collar defense, organization, and operation of non-profit entities, litigation, and ethics.  Larry has also served for ten years as an adjunct law professor while maintaining his active practice.

“My focus is on bringing a transactional approach to commercial dispute resolution and providing business leaders the opportunity to make the most advantageous business decisions given the facts and circumstances of the matter at hand”.

Levy was recognized as one of the “Best Lawyers in America” by Government Relations, was the recipient of “Lawyer of the Year” by the Republican National Lawyers Association, and the Corporation Counsel’s “Award for Distinguished Legal Service”.