An Interview with Brian Robison: Enterprise-Litigation and Mediation in Texas

One of the crucial attention-grabbing developments in business litigation is the best way a brand new technology of mediators is utilizing inventive and business-minded approaches to resolving battle. A type of taking a brand new strategy to mediation is Brian Robison, a accomplice in Texas-based regulation agency Brown Fox PLLC.

Given your background as a trial lawyer who represents giant corporations in a variety of business-litigation issues, how did you resolve to department out into mediation and various dispute decision?

I made this transition for 2 causes. First, I noticed the toll that protracted litigation takes on the litigants, and I wished to get entangled in serving to events resolve their disputes. Complicated enterprise disputes typically final for years and value the events dozens of tens of millions of {dollars} in lawyer and knowledgeable charges in addition to settlements on the eve of trial. I nonetheless love the regulation, however as an alternative of being a part of the slog towards trial, I wished to play a distinct function. I wished to see if I might assist design inventive options that may enable events to cease the haemorrhaging on charges and attain closure earlier than rolling the cube with a jury. Second, in my 26+ years as a trial lawyer, I noticed a large variance within the high quality of mediators I used. Some had been distinctive. The mediators on this class invested the time essential to be taught the case, they understood the private dynamics on all sides, and they didn’t have just one method of working a mediation. They tailor-made their plan to the scenario they confronted. Nevertheless, different mediators had been nothing greater than number-carriers. They didn’t add any worth to the method. I believed by becoming myself into the primary class, I might supply events and attorneys a strong various to a jury trial who might assist them put the distraction of litigation behind them.

As a trial lawyer who represents giant corporations in a variety of business-litigation issues, how has this expertise helped you add worth to battle decision shoppers and their disputes?

By drawing on my 26+ years of litigating advanced instances, I’m able to paint an express image of the prices, uncertainty, and delay concerned in protracted litigation. It’s stunning what number of events don’t notice (till I discuss to them) that there’s a monstrous distinction between securing a positive jury verdict and precise amassing cash. Prevailing at trial is nothing like getting cash out of an ATM. Prevailing at trial means a celebration has a pleasant piece of paper entitled “Ultimate Judgment” to hold on the wall. They typically face years of pricy appeals after which assortment efforts earlier than they notice any profit from that judgment. I emphasize that by means of a settlement, the events have some management over the end result, whereas at trial their fates are within the arms of 12 jurors whose solely qualification is a driver’s license. A settlement additionally brings closure years sooner than a litigated answer. And a settlement ensures price management; the events can cease the pricey cycle of discovery, movement follow, and making ready for trial a number of occasions as instances get set and reset for trial a number of occasions earlier than reaching a jury.

What kind of instances have you ever labored on, and are you seeing any current tendencies in mediation?

I’ve mediated all kinds of instances, together with: employment, non-competes, enterprise divorces, oil & gasoline, breach of contract, fraud, authorized malpractice, actual property, merchandise legal responsibility, breach of fiduciary responsibility, DTPA, securities fraud, TCPA, and anti-SLAPP.

I’ve seen two notable tendencies in my time mediating instances. First, we have now partisan judicial elections in Texas, and if the related courtroom of appeals turns blue, then attorneys on each side of my instances begin altering their valuations, considering the brand new appeals courtroom might be extra plaintiff-friendly. Second, I see increasingly attorneys insist that I skip any sort of opening session the place the events or the attorneys make displays. Some attorneys say a gap session will rile feelings and set again any settlement efforts, whereas others say a robust opening speech will embolden a consumer to suppose its case is stronger than it truly is.

What’s your strategy or fashion to mediation?

Preparation is my calling card. Earlier than every mediation, I meet individually with all sides, assessment the mediation statements, sizzling paperwork, and key pleadings, and ask each side what I contemplate to be the powerful questions. I feel it’s important to have pre-mediations conferences with each side, fairly than simply learn the mediation statements. These conferences are interactive and permit me to ask (earlier than the precise mediation) how all sides sees sure information enjoying out earlier than a jury and explains the unhealthy paperwork. By being totally educated concerning the information and regulation beforehand, I at all times hit the bottom working. The attorneys should not have to waste half a day educating me concerning the case whereas their shoppers get pissed off by an absence of progress; we are able to transfer straight into negotiating a potential decision. As soon as the mediation begins, I feel my fashion is just like that of a regulation professor. I like to speak on to the shoppers about what I see because the strengths and weaknesses of their case, I stroll by means of how a jury is more likely to view the proof, and I generally conduct mock cross-examinations on key paperwork to see how a witness may fare in courtroom.

How are mediation proceedings carried out in your jurisdiction?

There isn’t a obligatory format for mediations in Texas. I’ve had success with the entire normal codecs: in-person, Zoom, and hybrid. I want in-person mediations as a result of I be taught a whole lot of data by means of physique language and facial expressions throughout my non-public caucuses. Nevertheless, there are benefits to the Zoom and hybrid codecs, particularly that it’s typically simpler to get high-level decision-makers to attend a mediation if they’ll attend through Zoom.

What’s the basic timeframe for mediations in your jurisdiction? Is there any statutory interval inside which mediations should be accomplished?

No, there is no such thing as a required timing for mediations in Texas. I’ve had events mediate with me earlier than and after instances are filed; earlier than, after, and through discovery; on the eve of trial; and even after last judgment has been entered.

About Brown Fox
Based in 2010, Brown Fox is a enterprise boutique regulation agency centered on serving companies, executives, and entrepreneurs in follow areas mostly wanted to advance enterprise development, handle threat, and defend from assault. The agency’s consultant clientele contains corporations starting from start-ups to publicly traded corporations. The agency has workplaces in Dallas and Frisco.  

About Brian Robison
Brian Robison is a trial lawyer at Brown Fox PLLC who represents giant corporations in a variety of business-litigation issues. Mr. Robison can be knowledgeable arbitrator and mediator providing events the complete complement of alternative-dispute decision companies. These ADR procedures present events a option to resolve disputes and attain finality far ahead of they might count on in courtroom, whereas lowering litigation prices and eliminating threat. When serving as a mediator, Mr. Robison attracts on his greater than 26 years of expertise representing each plaintiffs and defendants in a variety of litigation issues and delivers the benefits of the ADR course of.

E mail: brian@brownfoxlaw.com
Tel: 972 707 1809
www.brownfoxlaw.com

Revealed by: www.lawyer-monthly.com