A full time mediator and arbitrator, Ben Picker, has successfully resolved many hundreds of domestic and international disputes with a cumulative value of several billion dollars. Ben has served as a neutral in complex business disputes in corporate and commercial transactions, asset/stock purchase agreements, securities, employment, environmental, ERISA, intellectual property, health care, real estate, products liability, bankruptcy, construction, professional liability, shareholder and partnership disputes, and class actions (including numerous data breach disputes).
In 2010, Ben received the American Bar Association’s prestigious “Lawyer as Problem Solver Award.” He was recognized for his “unprecedented insight into new avenues of dispute resolution.” The award is presented annually to an individual or institution demonstrating profound creativity in problem solving.
Ben is a member of the National Panel of Distinguished Neutrals and the Employment Panel of the CPR International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution; a member of the Commercial Mediation Master Mediator Panel, Arbitration, International and National Class Action Panels of the American Arbitration Association; a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators and is certified by the International Mediation Institute. He is the author of Mediation Practice Guide – A Handbook for Resolving Business Disputes (Second Edition), published by the American Bar Association Section on Dispute Resolution. In 2023, he co-authored the Third Edition, titled Commercial Mediation Practice Guide – A Practical Handbook for Lawyers and Their Business Clients. He has also written numerous books and authored and co-authored numerous articles on mediation and arbitration.
Over several prior decades, Ben represented plaintiffs and defendants in a wide range of commercial cases, including contract, securities and class action disputes, employment (discrimination, harassment, tenure, restrictive covenants and wrongful discharge), uniform commercial code, product liability, professional liability (law firms and accounting firms) and complex commercial matters.
An active participant in the Philadelphia Bar Association, Ben served as the Association’s chancellor and as chairman of the Association’s board of governors, judiciary committee and appellate courts committee. He is a founder and advisory board member of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts and a former member of the Pennsylvania Trial Court Nominating Commission (First Judicial District).
Ben was also named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer annually since 2004 by a vote of his peers. In addition, he was selected annually since 2005 to be included in the editions of Best Lawyers in America, regarded as a definitive guide to legal excellence in the United States, and has been named Best Lawyers’ Philadelphia Area ADR “Lawyer of the Year” for five of the past 10 years, including 2023, based on an exhaustive peer-review of legal abilities of other lawyers in their specialties. Only a single lawyer in each specialty in each community is honored as “Lawyer of the Year.” Ben was also recognized as one of the world’s leading commercial mediators in the “International Who’s Who of Commercial Mediation” 2014 - 2022. The only Pennsylvania honoree, he was selected for providing “excellent work handling disputes involving corporate and commercial transactions.” Also recognized as an outstanding lawyer in mediation by the American Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations (see “Recognition”).