De Respino
Dispute Resolution
Dispute Resolution
Mediation & Arbitration Services
Avoid costly and unpredictable lawsuits with a uniquely qualified, highly experienced mediator and arbitrator who has a passion for resolving a wide range of complex and acrimonious disputes.
A Rare Combination of Claims, Trial, Mediation, and Business Experience
Outside trial lawyer, lead in-house corporate lawyer, top-tier business executive, and settlement judge.
Over 35 Years of Corporate, Commercial, and Personal Injury Expertise
Participated in and responsible for hundreds of settlement conferences and mediations.
Appreciation for Personal and Business Distractions
An astute, unbiased mediator mindful of the economic, emotional, and psychological damage caused by litigation.
As Seen In:
mediation
When You Need Mediation Services At The Highest Level
Larry De Respino has more than 35 years of trial experience, litigation and claims evaluation and management, and executive level corporate decisions. He is an expert at early case evaluations and pre-litigation claim settlement strategy. Following decades as both a provider and a consumer of top-tier legal services, De Respino is now available to serve as mediator in a full range of corporate, commercial, and personal injury cases.
Advantages:
- Experience in representing clients, both as outside and in-house counsel, and being a client and business advisor gives him a unique and creative perspective into effective and persuasive methods of dispute resolution.
- Broad range of insights into the adversarial system, plaintiff and defense bars, clients’ perceptions of litigation risk, and primary and excess insurance company decision making.
- Diverse experience informs a frame of reference and knowledge base for evaluating likelihood of outcomes. This provides parties a neutral, credibly supported basis for evaluating goals.
De Respino’s mediation philosophy reflects a reasoned approach applicable to any party to a dispute
De Respino will bring an informed and unbiased voice of experience to any mediation based upon two philosophies he himself practiced successfully and consistently whether his client was plaintiff or defendant.
- Reasonable and fair evaluation of opposing positions. He was the consummate devil’s advocate with his client’s cases. This led him to take unpopular positions regarding the relative strength of his clients’ positions.
- Advised his clients to contest only issues for which they had credible stories to tell. Conversely, De Respino counseled his clients to admit adverse positions when to do otherwise would weaken their case.
Be assured, that in any case he is called upon to mediate, De Respino will bring this same experienced, rational, and straightforward approach to bear, helping the parties achieve realistic goals while avoiding the heavy toll of lawsuits.
Areas of Dispute/Litigation Expertise:
- Complex commercial & business
- Employment
- Products liability
- Wrongful death and catastrophic injury
- Automobile & transportation
- Shareholder class action & derivative
- Consumer & commercial class actions
- Securities fraud
- Breach of fiduciary duty / Board of Director liability
- Legal and accountant malpractice
- Toxic & mass tort
- Intellectual property
- Closely held & family corporations
- Data breach/cybersecurity
- Real estate
- Construction
- Insurance bad faith
- Insurance coverage
Rate:
- $500/hr
- Accepting engagements outside of Arizona, a travel fee will apply.
"I have the passion and experience necessary to empower litigants to resolve complex disputes so they can regain control in an uncertain environment and end disruptions to their more productive endeavors."
Larry De Respino
Arbitration
De Respino is an experienced and skilled arbitrator
The depth of expertise, judgment, and reasonableness that make De Respino an exceptional mediator likewise make him an excellent choice as an arbitrator.
- Created U-Haul’s arbitration programs for all employment and consumer disputes. This required him to become an expert in the substantive procedural and evidentiary rules of major arbitration service providers nationwide.
- Emphasized substantive and procedural due process and cost effectiveness when customizing U-Haul arbitration programs.
- Painstaking attention to the qualifications of potential arbitrators so that all parties could be assured of a fair, effective, efficient system resulting in a reasoned result.
- Arbitration programs that resulted in the resolution of hundreds of disputes since implementation.
During his career, De Respino served as Arbitrator in approximately 25 matters and he has routinely represented parties before arbitration panels throughout the United States.
Professional Biography
Overview
De Respino has spent his entire legal career handling, managing, and evaluating litigation, ranging from single party to complex class action and multiparty cases. He combines an analytical, substantive approach with an appreciation for the emotional investment and sometimes unrealistic expectations that permeate each case. This approach was born out of his experience with intense and acrimonious personal disputes
- 1987-2000: Streich Lang kna Quarles & Brady, Partner and Trial lawyer
- 2000-2005: U-Haul, Director of Litigation
- 2005-2023: U-Haul, General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer
- 2005-2023: Judge Pro Tem of the Maricopa County Superior Court
Detailed Experience Relevant to Arbitration And Mediation Services:
- In private practice, De Respino focused on developing his trial skills which exposed him to a broad range of substantive legal issues including complex commercial, class action, employment, securities, construction, and products liability litigation.
- U-Haul’s litigation strategy under De Respino’s leadership embraced trying lawsuits (and arbitrations) to verdict. He participated in and managed well over 150 cases to verdict/award nationwide. As a result, he accumulated significant jury research through mock jury exercises and focus groups.
- Although unafraid to try cases, De Respino emphasized early case evaluations and pre-litigation/claim settlement strategy.
- As a senior member of a management team, De Respino counseled the CEO, Board of Directors, and senior business executives on a myriad of business transactions. In this role, he honed his business judgment and acumen and gained expertise in understanding and evaluating business deals.
- As a senior member of a management team, De Respino observed first-hand the debilitating and disruptive effects of protracted litigation.
- De Respino managed a national network of claims adjusters and litigation managers and routinely negotiated with excess insurance carriers. Not only did these experiences hone his litigation strategies but also educated him on the relationship between litigants and their insurance carriers.
- As a Judge Pro Tem of the Maricopa County Superior Court (and select private mediations), De Respino has conducted approximately 175 settlement conferences.