Joe DiBenedetto
Overview
Joe DiBenedetto recently retired from Winston & Strawn LLP, where he spent 46 years as a litigation partner in its New York office. He is acutely aware that virtually every case that cannot be disposed of by motion, is ultimately settled. The only question is when that settlement occurs. The longer a case is litigated, the greater the legal cost and management distraction. His mission is to assist litigants in arriving at a settlement quickly and effectively, through a mediation process that will make them comfortable that settling on fairly negotiated terms is their best option.
He has had over 50 hours of commercial mediation training, and has been a member of the Panel of Neutrals for the Commercial Division, New York County ADR Program since its inception in 1996. He also serves on the Panel of Neutrals for the United States District Court in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the Commercial Division ADR Panels in Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, and Westchester Counties. He has mediated over 1400 cases and participated as a litigant in more than 30 mediations while in private practice. More importantly, he enjoys the challenge, and has been very successful in resolving cases, even some that others thought were unsettleable. He has mediated cases that were high profile and drew media attention, and others that were routine commercial disputes. Joe DiBenedetto ensures that his mediations are scheduled promptly, and as a quickly as the parties desire. And the mediation will be completed at a fixed, affordable fee with no additional administrative or other charges.
Joe DiBenedetto also offers his service as an arbitrator, and for predictive analysis of a case, as described elsewhere on this website. For questions and availability, Joe DiBenedetto can be contacted at 646-236-2976, and JDiBened@JDBMediation.com.
Mediation Training & Experience
- Mediated over 1400 cases through Court ADR Programs and private retention.
- Appointed to the EDNY ADR Advisory Council for 2020-2022.
- Fully compliant with the requirements of Part 146 of the Rules of the Chief Administrative Judge of the New York Supreme Court’s Commercial Division ADR Program.
- Member, 1996 to date, Panel of Neutrals for the Commercial Division, New York County ADR Program. Also appointed to the Panel of Neutrals maintained by the Supreme Court Commercial Division ADR Programs in Westchester, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties.
- Appointed in June 2016 to the Panel of Neutrals for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
- Appointed in January 2018 to the mediator panel for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
- Participated as a litigant in more than thirty mediations while in private practice.
- Completed 24 hours of training in Basic Mediation Skills and 16 hours of additional Advanced Commercial Mediation Training sponsored by Commercial Division, New York County Supreme Court; also attended 12 hours of Commercial Mediation Training sponsored by the ABA Section on Litigation, and other ADR courses offered by the New York State Bar Association and other CLE providers.
- Completed 7 hours of FLSA Mediation Training by the Federal Bar Association, and the U.S.D.C., Eastern District of New York ADR Program.
Professional Experience
Joe DiBenedetto spent 46 years practicing law at Winston & Strawn LLP, and its predecessor firm, Cole & Deitz, in New York City. Winston is an international law firm with over 850 lawyers in 18 offices throughout the United States, Asia and Europe.
In 1970, he joined Cole & Deitz, which then had 17 lawyers, as the third lawyer in a three-person litigation department. He helped grow the firm to 90 attorneys when it merged with Winston & Strawn LLP in 1989. By that time, he was Chairman of its Litigation Department, which had over thirty litigators.
During his tenure at these firms, Joe DiBenedetto held various positions in management, including service on the Management, Litigation Steering , Retirement, Recruiting, and Associate Evaluation Committees.
Since February 2016, he has mediated over 1400 Federal and State cases involving a wide range of subject matters, including LLC, corporate and partnership dissolutions and related breach of fiduciary duty claims; FLSA and state labor law; commercial torts; family business disputes; civil rights and discrimination claims; residential and commercial foreclosures; attorney malpractice; receiverships; ERISA; union and CBA disputes; product liability; mergers and acquisitions; FDCRA litigation; contract, securities and consumer fraud; insurance coverage; defamation and disparagement claims; creditor/debtor rights; commercial and UCC contract disputes; zoning and municipal law issues; class, collective and derivative actions; employment agreements; and partition and other real estate issues, among other matters. Mr. DiBenedetto’s experience is set forth in more detail in the Credentials Section of this website.
Education
Joe DiBenedetto received a B.A., with honors, from St. John’s University in 1967 and a J.D. from St. John’s University School of Law in 1970, where he was Managing Editor of the St. John’s Law Review, and ranked 2nd in a class of 287. While on Law Review, Mr. DiBenedetto published three articles, and co-edited “Conglomerate Mergers: Opinion and Analysis”, a 1771 page volume analyzing the securities, antitrust, economic and tax implications of the conglomerate merger wave that occurred in the late sixties.
Bar Admissions
Admitted: New York Supreme Court, Second Department 1971; New York Court of Appeals 1980; United States District Courts, Southern District of New York 1972, and Eastern District of New York 1972; Second Circuit Court of Appeals 1988; Third Circuit Court of Appeals 1994; Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals 2008; Federal Circuit Court of Appeals 2002; Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation 1973.
Pro Hac Vice Admission in various district and state courts, including California, Illinois, Florida, New Jersey, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Tennessee.