Resume
As President and Managing Partner of her own law firm since 1995, Lynn Cole brings to the dispute resolution process over 26 years as successful trial attorney. Rated for most of her private practice years by her colleagues as "av" by Martindale Hubbell, she successfully tried over a hundred cases, primarily in federal court, and served a vast number of clients, including fortune 500 clients, in complex commercial, contract labor and employment, banking, and construction cases, among others. Her success and experience in litigation is testament to her knowledge and use of state and federal Rules of Evidence and Rules of Civil Procedure.
Since 2001, she has served as a full time dispute resolution professional with experience in all aspects of ADR, including mediation and arbitration. She has mediated and arbitrated over a hundred cases. Having served as an initiating member for over 10 years on the Florida Mediation Qualification Board, appointed by the Florida Supreme Court, she has a strong working knowledge of mediation in Florida and is certified as a mediator by the qualifying Florida Board, now called the Dispute Resolution Center. She also is trained at Harvard Law School in its Mediation Program. As Chair of the Civil Justice Reform Commission for the Middle District of Florida, she chaired the Commission that had as one of its missions, the investigation and recommendation of changes in case management and alternative dispute resolution programs to assist the burdened federal courts. She is an Adjunct Professor of Mediation at Stetson University College of Law.
Combining her substantial knowledge of U. S. and Florida federal and state judicial systems and mediation, she works to bring mediation to judiciaries in emerging democracies to increase societies' access to justice and to strengthen judiciaries by eliminating case backlogs. In Bulgaria, she assisted in setting up the registration, procedural and education aspects of a court-related mediation system. She served for three months in Jordan, assisting in the design and implementation of the first Arab court-related mediation program. The Pilot Program she helped design in Amman is highly successful and expanding into other Jordanian courts. Recently, in the spring of 2007, she designed all of the procedural, education, ethical and logistical protocols for the first Court Pilot Mediation Program in Kosovo. In each of these countries, she has trained mediators, judges and attorneys in basic and advanced mediation.
In addition to her practice in private mediation and arbitration, she has been appointed a Special Master, an SEC Receiver, and currently serves as a Special Magistrate. She serves as a neutral for the American Arbitration Association, International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution ("CPR"), National Arbitration Forum, Arbitrators and Mediators ("NAM") Roster and FINRA. The U. S. Council for International Business ("USCIB") lists her as an Arbitrator and Mediator and, she currently serves as the Florida Academy of Mediators ("FAPM"), Administrative Vice-President.
For additional details, please see Ms. Cole's current Curriculum Vitae (PDF).