Ms. Curtis considers herself to be a mediation generalist and enjoys mediating disputes involving wide-ranging subjects and equally wide-ranging levels of complexity, from two-party cases where the parties’ goal is to be able to work together more effectively, to cases involving complicated legal issues, multiple parties and high-stakes financial settlements. Ms. Curtis is especially skillful in conflicts involving elder care issues, high emotional content and difficult personalities. Mediation areas include:
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•Employment & labor (discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, invasion of privacy)
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•Elder mediation
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•Environmental
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•Partnership disputes
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•Personal injury
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•Probate
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•Product liability
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•Real property
Appellate Mediation
Dana Curtis is among the founders of the field of appellate mediation. For three and one-half years she served as Circuit Court Mediator for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where she mediated hundreds of appeals as a staff attorney mediator.
Over the past decade, she has become a nationally recognized appellate mediation trainer and consultant in the field of appellate mediation. In her four and one-half day programs, she has trained hundreds of lawyers and mediators to help parties and lawyers resolve disputes at the appellate level. She has designed and presented appellate mediation training programs for appellate courts in Hawaii, Nevada, Minnesota, Arizona and in California for the First, Second and Third Appellate Districts. She has presented programs and workshops on appellate mediation to bar associations and courts throughout the United States. She also serves on the Mediation Program Steering Committee for the California Court of Appeals, Second Appellate District’s Mediation Program.
Ms. Curtis also has experience as an appellate lawyer. During the first year of her legal career, Ms. Curtis served as staff attorney law clerk to California Supreme Court Associate Justice Edward A. Panelli. Her legal practice with McCutchen Doyle, Brown & Enersen (now Bingham McCutchen) included appellate work. And in the early days of her mediation practice, Ms. Curtis was an appellate lawyer with the First District Appellate Project.
Ms. Curtis serves on the mediation panels in the California Court of Appeals, First and Third Districts, and mediates appeals in her private practice.
Cases Ms. Curtis has mediated include:
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•Appeal from an eight figure judgment following trial in a breach of contract and loan fraud case
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•Appeal from a seven figure verdict for breach of a shareholder agreement and unfair business practices
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•Appeal from order granting a preliminary injunction in favor of plaintiff students and parents in a school civil rights case
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•Appeal from ruling on an anti-SLAPP motion in sexual harassment case
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•Appeal from seven-figure verdict in a product liability case
What Is Mediation?
Mediation is a collaborative process in which an impartial facilitator, with no power to decide the outcome, assists parties in reaching an agreement. It is a completely voluntary and non-binding process.
What Disputes Are Appropriate For Mediation?
With few exceptions, most disputes can be successfully mediated. If parties are motivated to work together to resolve their dispute and are willing to enter into a mutually satisfactory resolution, mediation is appropriate.
