Alternative Dispute Resolution Experience

For the first seventeen years of Wayne Fagan's law practice he divided his time between transactional work and litigation, Wayne felt that each type of work enhanced his skills in the other. In his litigation work, Wayne practiced in both state and federal court (both federal district court and bankruptcy court) at the trial and appellate levels representing clients on court appointed criminal matters, guardian ad litem matters concerning civil commitments, and a broad range of civil matters representing clients in family inheritance disputes, general commercial litigation, defense of aircraft accident cases, anti-trust defense, products liability (both plaintiff and defense), patent and trademark infringment, wrongful termination, real estate development and construction litigation, including complex multi-party litigation.

It was the international transactional work that first introduced Wayne to alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Wayne's clients from San Antonio (small and medium sized companies) were apprehensive about entering into international transactions, particulalry with foreign governments, if they were going to have to enforce their legal rights in foreign courts. Wayne found that if he inserted arbitration, mediation and step negotiation clauses in the contracts his clients felt that they were entering into more of a level playing field and were less reluctant to enter into the contracts which in fact were highly lucrative and a win/win for both contracting parties.

In 1987 Wayne left private practice and became Senior Vice President of The Dee Howard Co. (DHC). Wayne returned to private practice in 1990 and has devoted a substantial amount of his practice to ADR since that time serving as an advocate, settlement counsel, and as a neutral (both arbitrator and mediator) in both domestic and international disputes as well as teaching, writing, and lecturing on the subject both in the US and internationally.

Experience

Mr. Fagan has served in over 250 arbitrations as sole arbitrator, party appointed arbitrator, and chair in both administered arbitrations under the auspices of the AAA, ICDR, and ICC and ad hoc proceedings purusant to the UNCITRAL Rules and the CPR Rules for Non-Administered cases. Mr Fagan has served as a mediator or settlement counsel in over 100 domestic and international cases which have covered the spectrum of two parties one-half day mediations to multiple party cases that have taken multiple days and in some cases months to resolve.

ADR Publications

  • Co-Author: "The Arbitration of Private Commercial Disputes Between Residents of Texas and Mexico", 24 St.Mary's Law Journal 803 (1993)
  •  "Dynamics in Cross-Cultural Negotiations", ABA Dispute Resolution Magazine (Spring 1996)
  •   Co-Author: "A Potential Threat to Texas ADR", 65 Texas Bar Journal 27(January 2002)

ADR Lectures

Lectures delivered in:

  • US
  • Canada
  • England
  • France
  • Italy
  • Switzerland
  • Spain
  • Mexico
  • Costa Rica
  • Colombia
  • Argentina
  • Peru
  • Puerto Rico
  • Chile

ADR Community Service and Governmental Advisory Positions

  • Combating school violnece by helping to organize and implement a peer mediation project in the US in collaboration with the American Bar Association and in San Antonio in collaboration with the San Antonio Bar Association
  • Advisor to the State of Nuevo Leon,Mexico in the drafting of the first ADR legislation at the state level in Mexico
  • Advisor to the American Bar Association on a USAID funded project to implement community mediation centers throughout Mexico
  • Advisor to the Chamber of Commerce of Buenos Aires,Argentina on a World Bank funded project to implement an online dispute resolution program
  • Participation in a UNCITRAL(United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) working group
  • Collaboration with the Organization of American States and the International Federtaion of Commercial Arbitration Institutions on the passage of ADR legislation in Latin American and the development of ADR infrastructure in Latin America

ADR Academic Appointments and Honors

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