Hon. Ellen Sickles James (Ret.), is known for her exceptional settlement skills and ability to connect to counsel and clients in both a personal and professional manner. A respected and experienced mediator, Judge James communicates effectively and patiently to bring closure to the diverse range of complex issues she handles. Through the thousands of cases she has settled, Judge James has earned the reputation of having a dedicated, compassionate and creative command.
ADR Experience and Qualifications
Since 1997, Judge James has served as JAMS mediator, arbitrator, Judge Pro-Tem, and Special master in multi-party, complex litigation in a multitude of areas of civil law. She has mediated hundreds of complex personal injury, wrongful death, and employment cases. She has expertise in business, commercial, real estate, and attorney fee disputes as well as a myriad of professional liability cases. Her work has resulted in the settlement of complicated insurance coverage cases, wills and trusts, and construction litigation matters.
Representative Matters
- Aviation: personal injuries, wrongful deaths and property damage including major airline, helicopter, small aircraft, and hot air balloon accidents
- Business: law firm dissolutions and contract disputes
- Class action: class action lawsuit brought against major national theater group where settlement resulted in a court-enforceable commitment to a timetable for installing captioning technology for the hearing impaired in every theater in California that is converted to digital projection
- Construction: large developments with multiple construction and land acquisition issues, including mold
- Employment: sexual harassment, racial, sexual, age discrimination and wage and hour class actions, theft of trade secret cases against former employees, ERISA claims
- Environmental: toxic release from refineries resulting in thousands of claims for personal injury and property damage
- Fraud: credit card fraud class actions
- Insurance: coverage issues related to auto accident bodily injury, property damage to residential and commercial structures, bad faith disputes, entitlement to disability benefits, and inter-carrier disputes
- Landlord tenant: class actions involving failure to return security deposits, failure to itemize statement of security deposit deductions, and development project issues
- Personal Injury: amusement park catastrophic injury cases, medical malpractice injury claims, wrongful death claims, highly sensitive and emotionally charged cases involving abuse and injuries to children
- Probate: wills and trust disputes
- Product liability: vehicular airbags, tractors, farm equipment, construction equipment and commercial machinery
- Professional Liability: legal, dental, medical, accounting, and chiropractic malpractice
- Public entity: disputes between counties, cities and public transportation systems
- Real Estate: lease, boundary, sales and commission disputes
- Trade Secrets: settled a case involving allegations of trade secret theft by former employees