Who Is Marlon?

“Experience, imagination, skill and knowledge, patiently utilized while informed by humanity, can achieve a lasting and satisfying resolution of conflict.”

Who is Marlon?

Marlon Schulman helps end disputes, lawsuits, and conflicts.

He has done so for decades, and has successfully settled hundreds of matters – to the great satisfaction of both parties and attorneys.

He helps foster better, more productive relationships amongst personal, business and community interests.

As a former trial attorney and “gun-for-hire, he knows litigation, court delays, calendar log-jams and then, what can happen once a matter finally gets to court and so he became a full time neutral advocate , a “champion for the settlement”.

And he is particularly sensitive to how conflicts can place a burden on and disrupt a participant’s business and personal life.

He helps clear caseloads for both sides of a litigated matter, with the represented client feeling better about the work their attorney has performed and the results their attorney has achieved.

His extensive real-world experience and work go well beyond the skills he has honed as an attorney, litigator, general counsel, CEO, business development executive, and founding start-up partner.

Every party at every Hearing has a difficulty or conflict that is informed and shaped by something that happened – whether it be something in the past, similar circumstances, dealings or experiences that shape their present. Marlon always seeks to put himself in the shoes of both parties; to better understand each party’s past and what each wants and needs in their present and perhaps, future. Marlon assists the parties to move to that settled future by finding the right path.

Marlon Schulman - Mediator in disputes, lawsuits, and conflicts

Read Marlon’s media bio here

My Background

I have purposefully not spent my career solely within the walls of law and theory. I have experienced and worked in the real world, facing varied problems, requiring real time analysis and practical solutions. I bring that broad, balanced experience and understanding to each mediation.

My work life can be likened to an on-going education. I have immersed myself and have earned theoretical and practical experience in many lines of work in different parts of our country.

Before becoming an attorney/mediator, I honed my interpersonal skills and experience as a clerk in retail and wholesale jewelry and have even worked as a waiter and busboy in the fabled Catskill mountains. I have worked as a project manager in the construction and renovation of houses and apartments both in New York and Los Angeles.

I have degrees in theatre and philosophy and have acted professionally. I helped start an East Village (New York) theatre company. I have studied and play several musical instruments.

I have earned practical experience as an attorney and entrepreneurial business executive. I have served as an in-house mediator, volunteered for hundreds of court-ordered mediations, served as an arbitrator nationwide. As a neutral advocate, I bring my creativity, respect, patience, and commitment to listening, clarity and resolution to the table every time.

My Experience

I have spent years, as a plaintiff and defense attorney (as well as an arbitrator and mediator) in the worlds of personal injury and medical malpractice, working and trying cases as varied as defective heart valve litigation, medical and dental malpractice as well as the more commonplace litigation of automobile, “slip and fall “and small business and workplace conflicts. I have spent years involved with contractor complaints – and have done so in all roles as plaintiff and defense counsel as well as remote and in-person arbitration and mediation. I have mediated hundreds of personal injury, real estate, commercial and contracting cases in the LA Superior Court.

I have worked with families, estates, senior citizens (elders) and assisted living communities.

In the entertainment industry, I have worked as a Business Affairs as well as a Consulting Executive in the Hollywood studio system. Working with the MPAA (now MPA) worldwide has presented me with the challenge of working not just with one studio, but all the major and minor studios. While charged with motion picture and television anti-piracy investigations and resolutions, I investigated attorney malpractice and billing malfeasance. I served for years as General Counsel and head of Human Resources for a small conglomerate of music and sound production companies and served as an executive and development producer for an independent film fund.

I have been the Business Affairs executive for a high-end, worldwide executive search firm specializing in Architecture and Design.

I have experienced the excitement of start-ups, facing the practicalities and learning the lessons of an entrepreneur, and have also dissolved companies, feeling the pain and emotion of seeming loss and the attendant fall-out from such endeavors.

I have work as a mediator for Los Angeles Family Court Dependency hearings, seeking to keep children safe and protected in sometimes very difficult familial circumstances.

I am on the Board of the Southern Californian Mediation Association (SCMA) and serve as the chair of the Business/Public Outreach Committee.

I was chosen as a Fellow for the ABA Dispute Resolution Section and now chair the Dispute Resolution Client Representation Committee.

Marlon serves on the Board of Directors for the International Federation of Pickleball and as legal advisor to the association. Among other duties, he helps lead the sport on the path to certification as an Olympic sport.

My Approach

While there can be (seeming) similarities among conflict and disputes, in reality, every person, story, conflict, and dispute has its own nuances, differences and dynamics. And likely, the conflict or dispute is unique to those participants. It is that uncovering of the differentiation and appreciation of those differences that is essential for clarity and eventual resolution.

Listening: I have learned that the best communication most often pivots on superior, active listening. While one needs to “hear the words”, the problems, the dispute, I also actively listen for what is the root of the disagreement. This often will lead to a more imaginative, at times less obvious but better, solution and settlement of the dispute.

Open-minded and objective: I consider conflict an opportunity for the participants to find a mutually workable resolution. Disputes cannot be settled if they are only seen as “either/or”. When parties perceive the dispute in a different light, as a different possibility, then they become empowered, no longer limited by a finite set of options or way to achieve their best result. As a neutral advocate, I actively listen, and then seek to prioritize what is truly important to each party. I then can work to achieve equitable results preserving those essential priorities. This is especially significant in pre-litigation conflicts, before attorney fees and costs associated with going to court rise exponentially.

There are no magic words, no single key or technique to unlock the log jam. There is only hard, flexible work: a search for the common thread; the adoption of the right path to a release point; arriving at a shared understanding and settlement accepted and supported by all.

I use a comprehensive approach to problems, disputes ad settlement solutions. Whether it be facilitative, evaluative, transformative, or some blend of all - I will advocate and utilize whatever technique(s) and approach(s) that might elicit the best progress towards clarity and a shared settlement.