Scott Lawson

Scott Lawson became a mediator in 2016. He is a member of the Mediation Panel of the ADR Program for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In addition to serving as a mediator, he has litigated cases in the state and federal courts of California for 30 years, representing both plaintiffs and defendants.

Mr. Lawson’s litigation practice has encompassed employment law, commercial law, contracts, fraud, trade secrets, and unfair competition. He has successfully tried and arbitrated employment, fraud, contract and other disputes, in state and federal courts in Northern California and Southern California, as well as in JAMS and AAA. For ten years, he headed up Quinn Emanuel’s Northern California Employment Litigation practice and, in the years following that, represented both employers and employees in employment disputes, including wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage-and-hour, trade secret, and contract actions. Mr. Lawson also regularly serves as an arbitrator and as a neutral workplace investigator.

Mr. Lawson is an AV-rated (Judicial Edition) attorney and has been named a Northern California Super Lawyer in Labor and Employment Law 16 times, including each of the past 14 years. In 2020, he served as the Chair of the Litigation Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco. Since 2006, he has taught trial advocacy at Stanford Law School. He has also served as a mediator for the City of San Francisco’s Department of Police Accountability. From 2017 through 2023, Mr. Lawson served on the Civil Service Commission for the City of Piedmont, California.

As a result of his background and experience, Mr. Lawson has a thorough understanding of the legal issues involved and is therefore able quickly to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of each party’s litigation position, including an informed sense of how themes, evidence, and witnesses are likely to play to a jury. Just as importantly, Mr. Lawson is an attentive listener with strong process and interpersonal skills, who uniquely appreciates the competing goals, motivations, vulnerabilities, and emotions that underlie disputes. He is therefore able to break through entrenched positions and find creative solutions to difficult problems.