New York – JAMS, the largest private provider of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services worldwide, is pleased to announce the addition of Hon. James Orenstein (Ret.) to its panel. Judge Orenstein joins JAMS following a prominent legal career that included 16 years as a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of New York; several years as a litigator in private practice, including most recently at a firm specializing in technology and privacy law; and over a decade as a successful federal prosecutor and Justice Department official.
Judge Orenstein oversaw discovery and helped achieve settlements in cases involving a wide array of class action and individual claims, including those involving antitrust, business disputes, civil rights, construction, copyright violations, defamation, employment discrimination, ERISA, fee disputes, fraud, insurance coverage, legal malpractice, maritime disputes, medical practice, patent infringement, personal injury, products liability, RICO, securities, trademark infringement, and wage and hour laws. While on the bench, Judge Orenstein achieved national recognition for his pioneering opinions on the law surrounding the use of location tracking, encryption and other modern technologies and their effect on personal privacy.
Following his retirement from the court, Judge Orenstein entered private practice, where he built on his judicial work in the field of technology and privacy. He counseled technology companies on the privacy impact of new products and services and compliance with U.S. and European data privacy laws, and represented them in responding to government requests for their customers’ personal data and in litigation arising from such statutory privacy regimes as the Telephone Communications Privacy Act and the Video Privacy Protection Act. He was also appointed as an amicus curiae by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Based in the New York Resolution Center, Judge Orenstein will serve as an arbitrator, mediator, special master/referee and neutral evaluator, handling federal, cybersecurity and privacy, intellectual property, business and commercial, civil rights, antitrust and competition, employment, and personal injury and torts disputes. He is available to conduct sessions in person, as well as virtually, for attorneys and their clients across the country.
Judge Orenstein is nationally recognized and known for his extensive knowledge and background in technology and privacy. With his experience and deep understanding of ADR, we are confident he will easily transition into this new role as a JAMS neutral.
- Chris Poole, JAMS CEO
Just before joining JAMS, Judge Orenstein was appointed to help the special master in Trump v. United States resolve complex assertions of privilege and novel issues under the Presidential Records Act arising from the government’s search of the former president’s home. The court in that case agreed that “the efficient administration of the special master’s duties requires the assistance of the Honorable James Orenstein (Ret.) … who has experience with complex case management, privilege review, warrant procedures, and other matters.”
Before his judicial appointment, Judge Orenstein served as an assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, where he investigated and prosecuted hundreds of cases and was a member of the team that successfully prosecuted notorious mob boss John Gotti. Following the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, Judge Orenstein was selected to be part of the trial team that prosecuted the two men responsible for the attack. He then served as an attorney adviser at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, where he advised the attorney general and the White House on constitutional matters and helped resolve legal disputes between executive branch agencies. He was later appointed deputy associate attorney general. In that role, he headed a departmental task force on crime victims’ rights—a subject about which he has testified to Congress on multiple occasions—and oversaw the Justice Department’s responses to overlapping congressional and special counsel investigations into the 1993 tragedy at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas. Upon leaving the Justice Department, Judge Orenstein was a founding partner of the New York City office of Baker Hostetler.
Joining JAMS is a terrific opportunity to focus on what I enjoyed most about being a judge: helping people and businesses efficiently resolve disputes by listening carefully to their concerns and being creative about guiding them to fair, satisfactory results. I’m eager to begin this new phase in my career alongside the esteemed panelists at JAMS.
- Hon. James Orenstein (Ret.)
Judge Orenstein received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Harvard University and his J.D. from New York University Law School.
About JAMS – Local Solutions. Global Reach.
Founded in 1979, JAMS is the largest private provider of alternative dispute resolution services worldwide. JAMS successfully resolves and manages business and legal disputes by providing efficient, cost-effective and impartial ways to overcome barriers at any stage of conflict. JAMS offers customized in-person, virtual and hybrid resolution services locally and globally through a combination of industry-specific experience, first-class client service, the latest technology and highly trained mediators and arbitrators.
With a roster of over 400 neutrals and 30 locations, JAMS resolves thousands of the world’s important cases every year. JAMS neutrals are adept at managing the resolution process whether they are conducting in-person, virtual or hybrid hearings.
More information is available at www.jamsadr.com, and you can connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and our JAMS ADR blog. To learn about diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at JAMS, visit www.jamsadr.com/diversity/.
