About Jim Fitzgerald

* Jim Fitzgerald’s career is based on representing and advising clients for 40 years in dispute resolution, whether through litigation and ultimate trial or arbitration, or through mediation. That experience has been in federal and state courts around the country, as well as in a variety of arbitration tribunals. Jim has expertise in complex business disputes, and particularly in the areas of insurance/reinsurance, and professional liability (including Directors & Officers).

* Jim has a J.D. from Fordham University Law School, and a B.S.B.A. from Georgetown University School of Business Administration.  He is licensed in New York and California.  Jim is a member of the American Bar Association, New York Bar Association, California Bar Association, and Los Angeles County Bar Association. He is a member of ARIAS (Insurance/Reinsurance), PLUS (Professional Liability Underwriting Society) and served on the Executive Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Center for Civic Mediation.  Jim is a Certified Arbitrator and Certified Mediator for ARIAS. He is also a Panelist on the American Arbitration Association’s National Roster of Arbitrators.

*Jim began his career practicing law in New York at the national insurance firm Mendes & Mount where his practice focused on lawyer’s professional liability, directors and officers and reinsurance matters.  In the mid-1980s, Jim moved to Los Angeles where he began practicing general business litigation with an emphasis on business litigation, and particularly complex insurance and reinsurance cases representing insurers, and sometimes insureds.  Jim has practiced at several national/international law firms since moving to Los Angeles. Jim’s C.V. details his chronology of firm employment.  

*Over the years, Jim has first-chaired 50 jury trials, and conducted dozens of bench trials and handled 35 appeals in federal and state courts in California and around the country.   He has tried dozens of arbitrations before tribunals, including AAA, JAMS, ARIAS, The Independent Film and Television Alliance and NASD/FINRA. 

*Jim has been a trial instructor for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) for over 30 years. He has presented CLE courses on trial strategy for in-house and outside counsel. Jim is the co-author of The Rutter Group’s Practice Guide on Federal Civil Procedure Before Trial, as well as creator of Rutter Group’s “How To” litigate webinar series and a presenter for ARIAS on insurance issues in arbitration and mediation, and for the American Arbitration Association on arbitration issues.