Loretta Gastwirth
Chair
Loretta Gastwirth is a partner in the Litigation, Labor & Employment, Construction and Social Media, Software & Privacy practice groups and Chair of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) practice group at Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone, LLP. Loretta is experienced in matters involving commercial, contract, construction, employment, insurance, intellectual property, trade secrets, securities, business ownership and Indian Gaming law litigation, arbitration, mediation and appeals. Long Island Business News has recognized Loretta as one of the Top 50 Business Women on Long Island in 2005 and 2013 and “Who’s Who” in Women Professional Services in 2010 and 2021. In 2018, Loretta was honored by the Long Island Press as a Long Island Power Woman in Business.
Loretta has become well known for her work in mediation and arbitration. She serves as an arbitrator and mediator on the prestigious Commercial, Construction, Employment and Consumer panels of the American Arbitration Association (AAA), the AAA Construction Master Mediation Panel and the ICDR (the AAA’s International Centre for Dispute Resolution). Loretta is also a Mediator for the New York State Supreme Court, New York, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Queens County Commercial Divisions. Loretta has served as an arbitrator or mediator in over 200 cases.
Loretta has provided continuing education lectures to attorneys on mediation and arbitration. Loretta’s “inside” experience as an arbitrator and mediator has enabled her to provide invaluable insight to her clients who are involved in arbitration, trials and mediation. Loretta has arbitrated and mediated cases on behalf of her clients in many venues and before many domestic tribunals, most often the AAA and FINRA, as well as international tribunals. Loretta’s long and varied career as a litigator also provides immense value to attorneys and clients that appear before her in arbitrations and mediations.
Loretta started her career at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett litigating large securities fraud matters. She moved to a premiere entertainment litigation firm, representing such clients as Mick Jagger, Luther Vandross and Leona Helmsley, and later left Manhattan to join Meltzer Lippe in 1993. Loretta was a Notes and Comments editor for the Cardozo Law Review, graduated magna cum laude from both the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and University of Albany, State University of New York, School of Business and clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Jerry Buchmeyer in Dallas, Texas, who was voted Best District Court Judge by the American Law Journal her clerkship year.
Loretta is a Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators. She currently serves as the Chair-Elect of the New York State Bar Association, Dispute Resolution Section and was formerly the Co-Chair of the Section’s Domestic Arbitration Committee. She is also a member of the American Bar Association. Loretta previously served as Co-chair of the ADR Committee of the Nassau County Bar Association and was a Member of its Advisory Council for its Mediation and Arbitration Panels. She is also the former chair of the Executive Committee of the Cardozo Alumni Association, consisting of over 14,000 alumni and former Co-Chair of the Cardozo Long Island Alumni Club. The author of “Words of Wisdom: Getting the Best Results in the ADR Process”, “Despite ADR Consent, IP Cases End Up In Court,” “Beware of Ideas,” “Preventing Inevitable Disclosure of Internet Company Trade Secrets,” “The Benefits of Arbitration are Many; Shouldn’t be Dismissed,” “To ADR or Not to ADR: That is the Question,” and “ADR vs. Litigation: A Guide for Business”, many of Loretta’s cases have also been featured in the New York Law Journal and Long Island Business News. Loretta is a frequent panel speaker or moderator on topics relating to arbitration and mediation
Jennifer Lupo
Chair-Elect
Jennifer Lupo is a distinguished neutral with more than 30 years’ experience. Having sat in each seat at the dispute resolution table; as a civil litigator representing parties, as general counsel to private and public companies where she was the client, and finally, as the neutral mediator or arbitrator; these experiences inform her unique perspective as a neutral. Ms. Lupo is a member of the commercial and employment arbitration and mediation rosters of the American Arbitration Association (AAA), the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution, the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals panelist, and a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitrator. She is also a member of the mediation panels of the United States District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County, Commercial Division, amongst others. Ms. Lupo has been a mediator since 2005 and became an arbitrator not long afterwards. Representative matters/industries: agriculture, business, business divorce, cannabis, commercial, contracts, construction/engineering/architecture, cryptocurrency, employment, e-commerce, entertainment, financial institutions and investments, health care, hospitality, information technology, intellectual property, shareholder/member disputes, sports (boxing, baseball and football), telecommunications, and wine, spirits and food.
She is an Associate of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, a AAA Higginbotham fellow, a Judith S. Kaye fellow of the Historical Society of New York Courts, and a fellow of the New York Bar Foundation. An active member of several national and domestic bar and dispute resolution organizations, she is a founding member of the NYSBA Dispute Resolution Section, for which she is section Vice-Chair and an Executive Committee member. She is also a member of NYSBA’s Commercial and Federal Litigation and Labor and Employment sections. She regularly speaks and writes on issues pertaining to mediation and arbitration and volunteers her time to: Monday Night Law (a modest means law clinic of the NYCBAR), BardWorks, and mentors’ children in foster care, college and law school students, and new legal and ADR practitioners. Her longest mentorship relationship is 26 years and counting.
Ms. Lupo has served as chair, wing, sole arbitrator, mediator, co-mediator, process mediator, and neutral evaluator.
Jennifer holds an A.B. from Bard College in Film, an M.A. from SUNY Stony Brook in Political Science, and a J.D. from Touro Law Center, all with honors.
Chris McDonald
Vice-Chair
Chris McDonald, founder and principal of the ADR Office of Chris McDonald LLC, brings over thirty years of experience to his role as a conflict resolution professional. A former commercial and class-action litigator and senior attorney at a telecom company, Chris draws on his multiple-vantage-point experience—as plaintiffs’ and defendants’ and in-house counsel—to help parties resolve disputes that might otherwise seem intractable. He is a member of the American Arbitration Association’s National Roster of Arbitrators, its National Roster of Mediators, and over a dozen federal and state court mediation panels in and around New York City. He is also a FINRA arbitrator, and he arbitrates on a pro bono basis for New York’s Part 137 Fee Dispute Resolution Program. He has served as a chair, wing, or solo arbitrator in dozens of matters, and he has successfully mediated scores of private and court-assigned cases in a broad range of subject areas.
Chris began his legal career as a commercial litigator with Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, served as a senior public policy attorney at MCI WorldCom, and was later a partner with Labaton Sucharow LLP. While in private practice as a commercial and class action litigator, Chris prosecuted or defended matters involving a wide array of industries and areas of practice. While in-house counsel, Chris fought to advance the company’s goal of creating conditions favorable for facilities-based competition following enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Before his career in the law, Chris was in law enforcement; he served as a Uniformed Court Officer in Bronx Criminal Court and as a Senior Court Officer / Grand Jury Warden in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan while attending law school at night.
Chris is a graduate of Fordham University School of Law (J.D., FORDHAM LAW REVIEW, May 1992) and Manhattan College (B.S., cum laude, February 1986).
Gregory Classon
Treasurer
2023 to Present, GBCLASSONADR LLC – PRINCETON, NJ:
Through GBClassonADR LLC Gregory provides alternative dispute resolution (ADR) neutral services in ADR forums, both as a mediator and arbitrator. Gregory is a member of the following rosters/panels: Rule 1:40 roster of civil mediators for the New Jersey Superior Court; roster of public arbitrators for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA); register of mediators for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the So. Dist. of New York; USCIB/ICC USA listed neutral for arbitration and mediation; and the roster of commercial arbitrators and mediators for the American Arbitration Association.
2000 – 2021, SOLVAY USA./RHODIA USA – PRINCETON, NJ:
Gregory served as business counsel for a number of divisions of this European-based manufacturer of chemicals used in a variety of industrial applications, including for metal mining and refining, oil and gas production, home and personal care product manufacturing, as well as a division for the processing of bulk aspirin and acetaminophen, and the contract development and production of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Gregory was also a legal advisor for financial transactions and from 2005 to 2008 he was corporate finance counsel in Paris, France for parent company Rhodia S.A., later purchased by Solvay S.A., and where he advised on the negotiation and administration of debt restructuring transactions supporting Rhodia’s successful financial turnaround.
1981 – 1999, METALLGESELLSCHAFT (NYC), AROCHEM CORPORATION (STAMFORD, CT), TRANSWORLD OIL (NYC):
Gregory was a corporate counsel with these international corporations which engaged in the wholesale trade of crude oil and petroleum products in both physical, derivative and futures markets, and variously owned, operated or financed refineries and other energy industry assets. AroChem went bankrupt and Gregory managed estate business affairs for a Ch. 7 bankruptcy trustee through the sale of its petrochemical plant assets in Puerto Rico. As part of his responsibilities working for these concerns, Gregory was an in-house legal advocate for a variety of commercial and maritime legal disputes, which included an ADR arbitration a panel of three arbitrators under the rules of the Society of Maritime Arbitrators, two ad hoc arbitrations under UNCITRAL Rules before a single arbitrator, and a private mediation.
Hofstra University – Maurice A. Deane School of Law – J.D., 1981
Tufts University – B.A., Philosophy, 1978
Licenses: New York State Bar, New Jersey Bar, U.S. Dist. Ct. for the So. Dist. of N.Y.
Professional Associations: Member – New York State Bar Association – Dispute Resolution Section (appointed Treasurer August 2024), Maritime Law Association of the United States; NJ Assoc. of Professional Mediators; Garibaldi Inn for ADR (American Inns of Court); Fellow – Chartered Institute of Arbitrators
Marilyn Genoa
Secretary
Hon. Marilyn K. Genoa (Ret.) is a principal of Genoa & Associates, P.C., and its Dispute Resolution and Prevention Division, Synergist Mediation. Retired Village Justice for the Village of Old Brookville, she is widely recognized as a leader in alternative dispute resolution, commercial mediation, and dispute prevention throughout New York.
For more than 35 years, Ms. Genoa has represented businesses, real estate partnerships, condominium and cooperative associations, closely held corporations, shopping centers, and commercial and residential real estate owners in complex commercial and real estate matters. Prior to practicing law, she served as CEO of a national manufacturing and distribution company, providing her with a practical understanding of the business realities underlying commercial disputes.