One year ago, I retired from my position as a federal magistrate judge and joined JAMS as a neutral. While change is always challenging, I anticipated a fairly straightforward transition. After all, during my 28 years on the bench of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, I presided over countless settlement conferences and a large number of bench trials and evidentiary hearings. How different could private mediations and arbitrations be, I thought, from the settlement conferences and bench trials and hearings with which I was so familiar?

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