David Bluhm has since 2002 been a volunteer mediator with the Alternative Dispute Resolution Program of the Federal Court of the Northern District of California. In early 2014, he was selected to be on the Alameda County Superior Court panel for business mediation. When acting as a private mediator, Bluhm exclusively handles business cases, believing that he is best suited for those cases where his business legal experience may help the parties craft a business solution.
As an example, Bluhm was successful in a particularly sticky situation by designing a solution whereby one party received a license to technology no longer crucial to the other party in exchange for a release of a monetary claim. In another, the parties embraced Bluhm’s suggestion to a complicated exchange of equipment no longer required by one of the parties. Each of these cases resulted in outcomes that would not have been possible through litigation, saving the parties tremendously in legal fees, time and aggravation while obtaining a result that ultimately suited each side comfortably.
All cases will resolve. The mediator’s role is to help parties themselves find resolutions and keep expenses from growing, sometimes to unfathomable amounts. Additionally the mediator helps dampen the less tangible, sometimes painfully emotional, time consuming and constantly present expenditures that the parties do not always perceive on their own. Not all cases will settle at mediation, but all too often, when they settle perhaps even a year later, the terms of settlement are very easily what were within the parties’ grasp at the mediation. Bluhm seeks to have the parties take advantage of early opportunities to settle.
Bluhm has also volunteered extensively in judging mediation sessions at Northern California law schools and for national competitions.