Justice Charles Ramos, recently retired from the New York State Supreme Court, has started an alternative dispute resolution business with Orna Artal, his former principal law clerk. (Photo: David Handschuh/ALM)

Pointing to more than a decade of experience in resolving complex business disputes inside chambers through negotiation, newly retired Manhattan Supreme Court Commercial Division Justice Charles Ramos and his former law clerk have launched their own mediation and arbitration firm.

Ramos—who says he disposed of 14,000 matters, including 10,000 commercial cases, in a 35-year judicial career—and his former principal clerk view the firm as a means of continuing, and capitalizing on, a “tag-team” method developed over the years that they say efficiently helped many parties resolve long-lasting and expensive cases.

“I think what we're doing is we're trying to duplicate what we did in court,” Ramos said in a recent interview at his post-retirement chambers inside the Manhattan Supreme Court courthouse, where he will still work on certain active Commercial Division cases as a Judicial Hearing Officer.

Orna Artal (Photo: David Handschuh/ALM)

The goal of the two-person firm, said both Ramos and former principal law clerk Orna Artal, will be to help parties preserve business relationships by getting them out of entrenched, often bitter litigation.

When acting as Ramos' assistant law clerk, from 2005 to 2008, and then principal law clerk until Ramos' December retirement, Artal and Ramos would often “build a wall” between them in the earlier stages of commercial suits that flooded Ramos' chambers as a senior judge in Manhattan Supreme Court's Commercial Division.

Artal would act as the “good cop” and try to effectively mediate and settle disputes in an effort to both help the parties and clear the docket, they said. Ramos would not take part in those discussions. But if progress couldn't be made, he would often enter the discussions to use both his legal expertise and authority to try and resolve the case outside of the courtroom.

“Good cop, bad cop, it's worked,” Ramos said. “We must have this incredible record of being efficient” in resolving cases, he added.

He explained that he liked to stay away from the early, mediation-type talks, because “it could affect my thinking of the case, and they [the parties] might not be as candid with her [Artal] as they might be” if he were on hand.

The Ramos and Artal business comes at around the same time—early this year—that nine former New York Court of Appeals and appellate judges have begun offering their services as arbitrators in commercial cases as part of a joint venture. That network, founded by retired Appellate Division, First Department Justices David Saxe and James Catterson, has said it is unique because everyone in it has appellate and trial experience.

Ramos also said that another goal of his and Artal's firm will be to keep costs for parties down, through being a small outfit offering both mediation and arbitration services.

Artal explained that “most arbitrators won't provide mediation services, because you're conflicted. How can you arbitrate a case when you're mediating it?” But she said that she and Ramos will continue to use a wall between them whenever necessary.

“We want it to be a true alternative to litigation,” said Ramos, while noting that he is certified as an international arbitrator. “These days the big complaint from parties in these cases is that arbitration has become as expensive as litigation.”

He added, while contrasting his and Artal's firm to large, established organizations offering ADR services such as the American Arbitration Association and JAMS, “I like the idea of having something that is efficient, inexpensive and not overly bureaucratic.”

“We see a need for it,” said Artal, chiming in. Complex commercial litigation, she said, “is so costly for a business dispute, and it can be a very inefficient means of resolving a dispute if the parties want to preserve a business relationship.”

“Litigation can destroy that, because of the amount of time involved and the bitterness that can affect the process,” she added.

Asked about the pricing structure of the new venture, called simply Ramos & Artal LLC, the retired judge said only that it will be a “negotiated price,” and that he and Artal will often try to base the price on the “worth” of the case, meaning how much money is at stake in the dispute.

“We want to keep the door open to anybody,” he added, “without concern of very high filing fees, because some of the big organizations and institutions, you have to pay a lot up front”

As for how the outfit will attract business, Ramos said that he believed, at first, “it's going to be slow—what we're going to do is going to depend on word of mouth, more than anything else.”

He added that he and Artal work well together and have long thought of starting an ADR firm. “We love it,” he said, referring to using ADR to end disputes.