The American Arbitration Association® (AAA®) and its international division, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution® (ICDR®), announce that Cedric Chao has joined its roster of arbitrators and mediators In addition, Mr. Chao has been appointed the co-head of the ICDR's International Advisory Committee.
After leading high stakes and precedent setting cases in courts and international arbitration tribunals, Mr. Chao established a boutique firm enabling him to sit as an independent arbitrator, mediator and special master. He was a partner for 29 years in the San Francisco offices of a 1,000 lawyer firm where he founded and led the international litigation and arbitration practice, and served for six years as U.S. head of the international arbitration practice of a 4,200 lawyer global firm.
Mr. Chao's practice included large, complex commercial disputes including IP and technology matters, involving a variety of industries and practices with clients and law firms across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. This work provides him with a "big picture," multicultural perspective that will be utilized as an arbitrator and mediator. Mr. Chao has sat as presiding, sole and wing arbitrator in international and domestic commercial arbitrations. He served as one of 31 Advisors to the American Law Institute (ALI) project to draft the Restatement of the U.S. Law of International Commercial and Investor-State Arbitration.
“We are thrilled that Cedric Chao has joined the AAA and ICDR’s domestic and international panels. Cedric’s experience and capabilities will make a significant contribution to our field, and we are also looking forward to working with him in a leadership capacity with the AAA-ICDR’s International Advisory Committee,” said Eric P. Tuchmann, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, of the AAA-ICDR®.
Among his many honors and awards, California's legal publication, The Daily Journal, in September 2018 named Mr. Chao as one of California's "Top 100 Lawyers." He received The Daily Journal's prestigious "2019 California Lawyer Attorney of the Year" award for thought leadership and longstanding efforts to bring international arbitration to California. Mr. Chao was named by Best Lawyers in America as the "2018 San Francisco Arbitration Lawyer of the Year" and the "2020 San Francisco Mediation Lawyer of the Year."
Among his professional activities over the years are service as: the Ninth Circuit representative on the 15-member American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary; chair of the Magistrate Judge Screening Committee of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California; chair of the Litigation Section of the State Bar of California; and co-chair of the International Litigation Committee of the ABA Litigation Section. He is an elected Member of the ALI and a Fellow of Litigation Counsel of America. He is the co-author of the chapter "Mediation" in Thomson Reuters' leading treatise Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts (4th ed. 2016).
Mr. Chao earned his B.A. degree in economics with Distinction and Departmental Honors from Stanford University and his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.