Margaret L. Shaw, Esq. is widely respected for her persistence and creativity in reaching settlement. She has participated in the resolution of thousands of disputes nationwide.
A former civil litigator, Ms. Shaw has maintained an active ADR practice for almost thirty years and is the author of numerous articles on a variety of aspects of the ADR field. She joined JAMS when ADR Associates, a firm she co-founded, merged with JAMS in 2004. She was also for over twenty-five years an Adjunct Professor of Law at NYU Law School where she taught ADR and negotiation.
ADR Experience and Qualifications
- Extensive experience mediating, arbitrating, and facilitating disputes in a wide variety of areas including:
- Bankruptcy
- Business/commercial and contract disputes
- Class and collective actions
- Employment disputes: sexual harassment, retaliation; and age, disability, gender, race, and national origin discrimination
- Intellectual Property
- Libel
- Product Liability
- Professional Liability
- Real Estate
- Securities disputes
- Special Master
- Designed and implemented systems for resolving disputes in private organizations, public agencies, and in over two dozen federal and state courts
- Trained thousands of professionals, students, and volunteers in law firms and corporations, courts, government, and not-for-profit agencies around the country in mediation and negotiation skills
Representative Matters
- Bankruptcy: Series of cases involving preference claims and actions asserted under sections 547 and 550 of the Bankruptcy Code; series of personal injury cases against large retailer in bankruptcy
- Business/Commercial:
- Action for breach of fiduciary duties arising out of a partnership formed to invest in bonds, bank debt, and other financial instruments
- Claim by a high-profile recording artist against a music company and its principal seeking damages for breaches and misrepresentations involving an exclusive recording agreement
- Claims and counterclaims involving losses arising out of alleged breaches and failures of duty under a letter of credit and related trust agreement between two entities in the financial services industry
- Numerous mediations and arbitrations of contract claims including claims involving real estate, environmental waste disposal, licensing, and trademark; contract claims in the automobile industry, garment industry, securities industry, the pharmaceutical industry, telecommunications and professional sports; other types of claims including bankruptcy, libel, and products liability
- Class Actions: ERISA class action seeking reallocation of demutualization funds; ERISA class action challenging computation of interest credit used to value plan benefits; consumer class action alleging excess charges by lesser of motor vehicles; consumer class action involving equipment lease finance company; class action alleging mismanagement of an ERISA-governed retirement plan; many class actions against companies in a variety of industries alleging employment discrimination; many class and collective actions involving wage claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act and its state counterparts
- Employment: Countless matters including both individual and class actions involving disability, age, race, and gender discrimination and sexual harassment involving public and private sector employees and employers in a wide variety of industries; hundreds of individual and collective claims involving compensation and other employee benefits; many claims involving entitlements under employment contracts of high level executives; numerous claims alleging breaches of restrictive covenants, including covenants not to compete, non-solicitation of employees and disclosure of confidential information; scores of claims involving the denial of tenure at colleges and universities; many neutral investigations of claims of sexual harassment, retaliation, and/or ethics violations involving employees in both the public and private sectors
- Intellectual Property: Claim of copyright infringement, breach of licensing agreement and misappropriation of trade secrets; claim for damages resulting from alleged failures to perform under exclusive worldwide license for marketing computer programs and from failure to return source code; patent litigation brought by an entity in the communications industry and its intellectual property holding company against one of its service providers; claim by placement agency against a competitor alleging theft of trade secrets
- Libel: Libel action against the writer and publisher of a book; libel action brought by an individual against a newspaper and its columnist
- Product Liability: Numerous product liability cases involving manufacturer of pharmaceuticals
- Professional Liability:
- Malpractice claims brought against a lawyer and several law firms alleging failure to properly investigate, make disclosures and institute recovery actions related to assets placed in a high-yield investment program
- Numerous professional malpractice cases including cases against law firms, a consulting and engineering firm, an architectural firm, a psychiatrist, a dentist, an accounting firm, the executor of an estate, a newspaper columnist and a cemetery
- Real Estate: Action brought by real estate investors against a former partner alleging project mismanagement and failure to make certain required distributions; dispute between real estate developer and banks involving alleged defaults under a credit agreement and an interest rate protection agreement
- Securities:
- Claims brought by a company in the financial services industry against a syndicate of entities alleging breach of an agreement to purchase certain debt assets
- Many claims against firms in the securities industry alleging failure to pay bonuses and other alleged compensation guarantees and types of compensation; action based on quantum merit involving third party marketing services to locate investors for a hedge fund; case alleging breach of joint venture agreement involving generation of options trades; claim alleging retaliation for reporting irregularities involving potential SEC and other federal agency regulations; allegations of defamation, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty against senior manager of a hedge fund; suit against a departing employee alleged to have taken confidential and proprietary information
- Special Master: Special Master in EEOC v. Astra USA, Inc., settlement of sexual harassment charges; and in EEOC v. Verizon, settlement of service credit for leave claims