Alternative Dispute Resolution

Alternative dispute resolution has been the rage in corporate litigation for at least two decades. Clients love it because it allows a chance to resolve conflicts without World War III. The key to its success, however, is having a good mediator. I do a lot of that stuff, but the one thing I can say with absolute certainty is this: Don't ever, and I mean ever, have The Sopranos' Little Carmine Lupertazzi mediate a dispute.

Little Carmine is great. The guy was on the air, in episode 77, for about 2 minutes in a sit-down with Tony and Phil Leotardo, and in that time, used at least a half-dozen malapropisms. However, he did drop a nice quote on the guys. It went something like, "The one thing my father taught me is that a gallon of gold is cheaper than a pint of blood." That made all the guys pause for a moment, and it looked like the peace was made. But Little Carmine had to revel in his fleeting importance. Right after T and Phil agreed to "wipe the slate clean" for a few deaths and the bombing of Phil's wire store, Little Carmine continued listing the items that were cleaned from the slate. When he mentioned to Phil "that thing that happened to your brother," Phil lost his mind and left. No deal.

The nice touch about bombing Phil's wire store was that located right next door to it is the Sheepshead Hair Design shop. That's got to be where Phil gets his hair done.