Please Note: Retired Judge Jonathan Silbert is conducting Mediations and Arbitrations online via Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mediation
Mediation & Arbitration Lawyer Joseph Garrison
According to the Connecticut Judicial Branch, fewer than 2% of all civil cases end in a verdict. The question for today’s litigants, then, is not whether they are going to explore settlement, but how and with whom. Joe Garrison and retired Judge Jonathan Silbert are committed to providing mediation lawyers and their clients with the functional equivalent of their “day in court,” but in a setting that is more informal, more comfortable, and more conducive to an amicable resolution. They have successfully assisted lawyers and litigants in the resolution of hundreds of disputes through mediation. Many of these settlements were reached months — if not years — before the parties would have finally had to present their cases in a courtroom.
Judge Silbert and Joe Garrison have each been a recipient of the Hon. Robert C. Zampano Award for Excellence in Mediation and are recognized throughout the state for their knowledge, skill, and sensitivity in helping to promote settlement. They stand ready to provide expert, objective, and realistic mediation services as you seek to avoid the cost and uncertainty of litigating to verdict.
Arbitration
Retired Judge Jonathan Silbert
Arbitration is another method of dispute resolution that avoids much of the expense and at least some of the risk of a full trial. It is a procedure in which a neutral party makes a binding decision following a hearing that is usually far less formal, a good deal faster, and much less anxiety-producing than a trial in the courthouse. Often, the parties to an arbitration choose to minimize their risk further by instituting their own “high-low” agreement. Under such circumstances, the parties privately agree that they will be bound by the arbitrator’s decision if it falls within certain parameters, but also agree that that they will resolve the case for an amount no higher than the upper end of those parameters (the “high”) and no less than the lower end (“the low”).
Mediation Lawyers
Joe Garrison and Judge Silbert both have extensive trial and arbitration experience in a wide variety of practice areas. As a result, many of Connecticut’s best and most experienced lawyers continue to trust them to serve as “private judges” in such proceedings.
