Former Latham & Watkins partner Christopher "Kit" Kaufman isn't your typical entrant into the world of alternative dispute resolution. In his big firm practice, he was a dealmaker. He handled Lucasfilm's more than $4 billion sale to The Walt Disney Co. and Avago Technologies' $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom Inc., just to name a couple of career highlights.

But now, post-big firm retirement, he wants to help parties resolve issues involving much smaller dollar figures. Kaufman this year launched Swift Dispute Resolution, a process he hopes will help parties with disputes in the mid-six-figure range bring their conflicts to a quick, inexpensive and effective end. Kaufman's SDR has the look and feel of a daylong mediation session with an important catch: If the parties can't reach a resolution by the end of the day, he will render a decision that the parties agree will be binding. The Recorder caught up with Kaufman to get the details on this new venture and to prod him about why a deal guy like him is equipped to resolve disputes outside court.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Where did the concept for Swift Dispute Resolution come from?

Probably waking up in the middle of the night at 3 a.m. It's my concept based on my experience with both mediation and arbitration. As a corporate lawyer, I'm not the major performer at those. But as a corporate lawyer, you're often the first person that someone talks to when they have a problem. So, I have been to mediations, and I have been in arbitration and, frankly, I worked for a judge in the dark ages, and this is as close as I could come to [judging] now that I'm not at Latham anymore.

So, what are the basic mechanics of how you set up your program?

Somebody calls me and contacts me and says, "We have this dispute, is this a dispute where your system could apply?" I tell them whether it would make sense. There are certain things [where it doesn't.] I wouldn't want to try to settle a patent case in a one-day meeting. If it's a $100 million claim nobody is going to want to use me, and I'm going to say I'm the wrong person.

Let's assume they describe something where I might be able to help and might be able to decide it. We sign a contract, in effect an engagement agreement. Both sides need to sign. It provides for the following process: Each side presents 20 double-spaced pages, 14-point type or greater summarizing their position. I'm entitled to ask them additional questions, of course. And then we set up a meeting date, which is kind of a mediation-slash-resolution. It's one day. It starts at 9 a.m., ends at 5 p.m.. And the major part of the day should be spent in something that looks like mediation, where I would go and talk to each of the parties independently. But like with most mediations, it's open and you could have a meeting with everybody. You could have separate shuttle diplomacy, which is the normal thing that takes place in mediation.

The idea is that if there is not a negotiated resolution between the parties by 5 p.m., then I just render a decision, and it's binding on everybody. The whole process under California law is confidential. Nobody needs to know anything about it. But it is an enforceable judgment. The engagement agreement will provide which court is available to enforce it.

The whole pitch is that this can be over and done within three weeks or less, depending on the timing. It's not going to go on forever. When people have decided to sign up for this, they can't go into the mediation part of the day and posture all day, because at 5 p.m. somebody is going to render a decision if they haven't reached a settlement in the meantime. It's really meant for disputes that people don't want to spend a fortune on in terms of time, effort and money on lawyers.

So what is the sweet spot?

I think it will depend in part on the parties. For huge corporations where they know that they can spend an enormous amount, it will be a higher number. But my gut told me that, particularly if you have very sophisticated law firms, if there's a $300,000 claim, what you don't want to do is to spend $150,000 on your own lawyers and still take the chance that you're going to have to pay the $300,000. So, instead, your own lawyers can't cost you a fortune, because they just write a 20-page position paper, and the most that they can do after that is show up for one day at the meeting. And at the end of the day, you're done.

I'm only going to spend a couple of days total on this, so I'm not going to cost you a fortune. It's going to be a fixed fee. This is really meant for an in-house counsel, in particular, who is saying "I don't want to give up on this claim. I don't want to give up and play dead." Or "My vice president doesn't want to roll over and play dead," or whatever.

Everyone wants to take a shot at this, but doesn't want the legal fees and the time and effort of executives to be overwhelmed by something that is not a bet-your-company matter. That's why I said it's not for patent cases, it's not for antitrust cases. It could be for an internal dispute over governance. It could be an internal dispute where someone is going to leave the company but everyone wants to figure out on what terms and nobody wants something that's public, nor do they want to spend a fortune on it. They want to get a resolution.

The idea is that a lot of disputes just aren't worth it, and people spend a lot of money to get a perfection.

How long have you been up-and-running?

Since the beginning of this year. I haven't done a case yet. I've not met anyone who doesn't like the idea—even outside lawyers in spite of the fact that in certain cases people won't spend as much on outside lawyers.

I think people seem to like the idea because of the problems with mediation and arbitration. In mediation, having been in a whole bunch of them, nothing happens except that people posture until 5 p.m. And then if they really want to settle then they might get serious at that point. But it's really easy to walk away, because there's no Solomon there to cut the baby in half.

I had one mediation that I did where I did what's called the mediator's proposal at about 3 p.m., and one side, I think, clearly would have taken it. The other side said "no." Four weeks later I was told by the people who brought me into it they settled on exactly the same terms I proposed.

The whole idea of Swift Dispute Resolution is that you can't play games because 5 p.m. comes. If I'm there saying, "You may have a weakness in this area," they've got to take it seriously. They don't get a clean shot from someone else.

The problem with arbitration is that it's devolved into something that's so much like litigation that it goes on forever.

What makes a deal guy like you qualified to handle the types of disputes that you're aiming to mete out?

That's a fabulous question. I'll tell you, what makes me qualified is I had to make deals for a living. Litigators never had to make deals. They fight. So I can take a look at this from a deal perspective. I had 40-some years where that's what I had to do. I had to figure out how to get to a deal. I think that since there is an aspect of this that is like mediation, I think that a deal lawyer who had to figure out how to bring parties together and make a deal has very good experience that can be useful in resolving disputes because that's what we had to do. We had to bring parties together, and I think that that experience is really good and helpful in terms of reaching resolutions in a way that litigation experience may not be as favorable.

People complain how much lawyers cost and how much time they take whenever there's litigation. The idea here is you pick the right kind of dispute and you don't have to do that, but you don't have to give up. You don't have to give in.