Simone K. Lelchuk, Esq.

Simone K. Lelchuk, Esq., is a nationally recognized authority in the design, administration and allocation of high-profile complex settlement funds and a seasoned mediator. She is widely respected for her breadth of knowledge, her ability to grasp complex issues with ease and her success in guiding deeply entrenched parties to resolution through a powerful combination of impeccable preparation and legal acumen.

Her settlement fund and allocation work focuses on disputes relating to a wide range of mass tort, sexual assault, sexual discrimination/harassment and Title IX (Education Amendments of 1972) matters. She also possesses deep experience mediating a host of multifaceted disputes across multiple practice areas. Regardless of the type of case, she brings the same level of determination, efficiency, sensitivity and objectivity to her work.

• Settlement Program Design and Allocation

Ms. Lelchuk’s preeminent role in the design, administration and allocation of sensitive and complex settlement funds and the highly publicized cases in which she has been involved have been covered by leading media outlets including, among others, The New York Times, The Guardian, The National Law Journal, Law360, Reuters, NBCnews.com and CNN.com. She brings meticulous attention to detail and rigorous analytical judgment to the design and implementation of these settlement frameworks in mass tort and commercial matters that result in comprehensive and durable solutions. The results promote efficiency, empathy, fairness and finality—values essential to all stakeholders.

Her work includes the administration of funds related to several class actions brought by the sexual abuse victim-survivors of Jeffrey Epstein. United States District Court Judge Jed K. Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) appointed her to design and allocate the victim-survivor fund that was created as a result of a $75 million settlement with Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft. Judge Rakoff also appointed her to administer a JPMorgan Chase $290 million settlement fund created for the benefit of those victim-survivors. Ms. Lelchuk is also the fund administrator for the Epstein-related Bank of America N.A. $72.5 million settlement before Judge Rakoff, and the proposed administrator of the $35 million fund before United States District Court Judge Arun Subramanian (S.D.N.Y.), wherein the co-Executors of the Epstein Estate, Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn, agreed to settle a class action lawsuit involving allegations that they aided and abetted Epstein’s sex trafficking activities. Ms. Lelchuk has also mediated several of these class actions in addition to a plethora of individual claims brought by the sexual abuse victims-survivors of Epstein and people associated with him.

Ms. Lelchuk also designed and was ultimately appointed to administer an innovative $10 million mental health fund allocated as part of a $75 million Epstein-related settlement between JPMorgan Chase and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This fund, designed to support the mental health needs of Epstein’s survivor-victims, has proven especially successful. Indeed, on July 1, 2025, the program was expanded to cover treatment modalities (in addition to individual psychotherapy sessions) available to victim-survivors, such as family/couples therapy; educational support (e.g., for tuition, seminars, coaching); music, art and equine-assisted therapies; trauma-informed yoga; prescribed medications; and select fertility-related services.

Ms. Lelchuk also administered the $17.1 sexual misconduct claims fund established to compensate the victim-survivors of Harvey Weinstein to resolve sexual abuse claims against him and two of the companies with which he was affiliated. She also served as a mediator on these claims; those efforts resulted in the establishment of this fund.

Her settlement fund work also includes the design and administration of the Columbia University and Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) non-litigation $100 million settlement program (set up by Columbia University and the CUIMC) for the benefit of victim-survivors who were impacted by the abuse and harm caused by former gynecologist Robert Hadden, as well as trustee work related to the Purdue Pharma (which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019) and Sackler family $7.4 billion settlement fund established to compensate victims of the opioid epidemic.

• Mediations

Ms. Lelchuk is a seasoned ADR professional who also has extensive experience mediating a wide range of multifaceted disputes across a wide span of industries. She has been selected to mediate claims involving sexual abuse allegations against numerous individuals and estates, as well as related claims in these cases involving other organizations and defendants. This work includes over 100 claims made by the victim-survivors of Epstein. It also includes the widely publicized sexual assault claims alleged against The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York. In March 2026, the Diocese announced that it had reached a $148 million settlement in the Chapter 11 case filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of New York for victim-survivors of sexual abuse perpetrated by its clergy, religious and lay employees, and volunteers.

Ms. Lelchuk regularly mediates a variety of cases involving complex business and commercial, corporate governance, insurance coverage (including those relating to general liability (GL)/commercial general liability (CGL)), errors and omissions (E&O), directors and officers (D&O), and representations and warranties (R&W) policies), employment, catastrophic personal injury, professional liability and fee disputes, as well as an array of cases in the antitrust, bankruptcy, consumer class action and securities class action (and related derivatives) realms.

Prior to becoming a neutral, Ms. Lelchuk worked in private practice at a large New York City law firm, where she practiced in both litigation and transactional groups. Before practicing law, she was a consultant at KPMG LLP. Her experience at KPMG and private practice allowed her to grow adept at not only understanding complicated processes and detailed data, but also organizing such processes and data cohesively, conducting analyses to define key insights and presenting findings in a comprehensible manner to ensure buy-in and alignment from all parties.

Ms. Lelchuk is deeply committed to education and thought leadership. She is an adjunct professor of law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she developed a unique mass tort seminar class for the law school. Her course focus is on the intersection of various facets of law (e.g., bankruptcy, notice and administration, insurance) with the litigation and ultimate settlement related to catastrophic events, including, but not limited to, environmental disasters, terrorist attacks, sexual abuse/harassment and other traumatic events.

Ms. Lelchuk is also a highly sought-after participant for legal symposia. She has been a featured panelist in presentations hosted by legal, educational, bar and professional organizations, including the Academy of Court-Appointed Neutrals (ACAN), the Society of Women Trial Lawyers, HarrisMartin, the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance (CLM), Perrin Conferences, the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR-GNY), the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law’s highly regarded Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution, the Women in Securities Litigation Network and the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS), among others.

In both her settlement fund design and allocation work and hundreds of two- and multiparty (including class and multidistrict (MDL)) mediations, Ms. Lelchuk combines analytical rigor with creativity. The procedures she develops in cases both large and small are clear, transparent, consistent and defensible, and reduce friction among the most intractable of parties. Practical and direct, she focuses on building systems and solutions that work for all stakeholders while preserving the neutrality of the ADR process.