About Scott E. Shapiro

Introduction

Scott E. Shapiro is a highly regarded neutral, business litigator, and trial attorney. He is actively transitioning his decades of complex civil and employment litigation experience into a full-time alternative dispute resolution practice.

Reinforcing his commitment to elite facilitation and settlement strategy, Mr. Shapiro is currently an LL.M. Candidate in Dispute Resolution at the premier Straus Institute at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law. He also holds the Institute's prestigious Certificate in Mediating the Litigated Case, having completed their rigorous 40-hour professional training.

Mr. Shapiro has served on the Employment Law Panel as an Arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association since 2022, and regularly manages a robust docket of arbitration matters.

To dedicate his full focus to his expanding neutral practice, Mr. Shapiro ceased accepting new litigation or consulting matters as of August 12, 2026. While his primary focus is dispute resolution, he continues to see his existing, high-value employment law matters through to completion for clients who retained him for those matters prior to this transition date.

Prior to and after commencing his neutral practice, Mr. Shapiro was highly selective in his advocacy, maintaining a deliberately balanced practice of nearly equal plaintiff and defense cases. As he gradually winds down his remaining litigation docket to focus exclusively on mediation and arbitration, this historical ratio will naturally shift as his final cases are guided to their natural conclusion.

Education, Litigation, Trial, and Appellate Experience

Mr. Shapiro has previously represented the prevailing parties in several seven-figure actions, jury trials, class actions, and appeals, including in actions defended by highly regarded Los Angeles and national litigation firms.

In addition to his formal legal degrees, Mr. Shapiro completed the intensive Mediating the Litigated Case professional program at Pepperdine University’s Straus Institute, further refining his advanced dispute resolution skills. He received his J.D. from Southwestern Law School (formerly named Southwestern University School of Law) in 1997, after earning a Liberal Studies B.A. (emphasis in Administrative Studies and American History) in 1993 from the University of California, Riverside.

Mr. Shapiro has practiced as a litigation attorney in Los Angeles since 1998, heavily engaged as a trial attorney, complex business litigator, complex collections attorney, and employment law attorney.

Prior to graduating law school, Mr. Shapiro participated in a summer clerkship in Department 66 of the Los Angeles Superior Court, which at that time handled all Writs of Attachment and Possessions at the Central District Courthouse. This experience proved highly useful in his career handling advanced collection matters while continuing to hone his evidentiary marshaling and presentation skills. Mr. Shapiro has previously obtained, and successfully defensed, many dozens of Writs of Attachments and Writs of Possessions in his career. 

Prior to graduating law school and passing the California Bar Exam, having taken a trial advocacy class at Southwestern and thereafter becoming certified, Mr. Shapiro also participated in a volunteer externship with the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office. During that externship, Mr. Shapiro acted as first chair and obtained a jury trial criminal conviction for the People of the State of California.

For several years, Mr. Shapiro worked for Aaronson & Aaronson in Encino, California, handling contract, fraud, construction, and intellectual property actions. In 1999, he established his own practice, focusing on complex business litigation, trial work, and class actions. 

Mr. Shapiro's early trial experience and advocacy training gave him the tools necessary to successfully handle, within three years of graduating law school, a seven-figure civil jury trial as first chair against a large publicly traded company. Mr. Shapiro successfully handled the subsequent appeal along with his co-counsel, fully obtaining the benefits of the jury's award.  That appellate effort included obtaining a reversal of a partial equitable award in the Defendants' favor, a reversal achieved by Mr. Shapiro after an appellate court reconsidered its decision by way of a motion for reconsideration. 

He continued his heavy litigation and trial practice until early 2009. After nearly a decade of intense work in his own firm, he became General Counsel for a factoring and trade finance company. For three years, this position afforded him significant time with his family while he regularly handled factoring transactions, trade finance transactions, and oversaw hundreds of collection lawsuits and lending disputes.

Returning to private practice, Mr. Shapiro successfully handled class actions—including seven-figure wage and hour matters—working alongside outstanding co-counsel. He subsequently formed Appell Shapiro, LLP with Barry M. Appell, actively operating the firm until August 2021 when both partners decided to pursue Alternative Dispute Resolution careers. While at Appell Shapiro, acting as first chair in arbitrations, Mr. Shapiro obtained high-value awards in favor of his clients, including a multi-million-dollar arbitration award with punitive damages. Mr. Appell, with the continued admiration of his former partner, is now a full-time employment law mediator (https://appellmediation.com/)

Arbitration Style and Goals

Mr. Shapiro's goal as an arbitrator is to provide parties a forum that affords them the opportunity to fairly and fully present their case, without the unnecessary expenditure of resources, time, and money associated with waiting to have issues decided in California's overburdened courts.

His arbitration style is typically formal, while placing a strong emphasis on maximizing the main benefits of arbitration: expediency, efficiency, and flexibility. As a litigant, he appreciated arbitrators who emphasized efficiency while consistently following the law, considering all facts, and issuing awards, whether such determinations were in favor of claimants or respondents. 

Mr. Shapiro's promise to parties as an arbitrator is that he will provide the parties a highly consistent, thoroughly evaluative, completely neutral, fair, and efficient forum for resolution of their dispute.  

Occasionally, when requested by all parties in an arbitration, Mr. Shapiro will hold voluntary settlement conferences. Such conferences are evaluative in nature and very different from Mr. Shapiro's mediations.  As such conferences are not mediations and because Mr. Shapiro does not want proposals to suggest any pre-disposition of determination of an issue, Mr. Shapiro does not issue mediator's proposals in voluntary settlement conferences.  As always when engaged as the Arbitrator, Mr. Shapiro recommends that parties engage in a mediation with other neutrals after the parties have shared (formally or informally) sufficient information that will allow them to make an informed decision at a mediation. 

Mediation Facilitative Style

When serving as a mediator, Mr. Shapiro shifts from the evaluative role of an arbitrator and employs a strongly facilitative approach grounded in his advanced Straus Institute training. Rather than issuing top-down evaluations or imposing directives, he focuses on fostering constructive dialogue and uncovering the underlying interests driving the dispute.

By prioritizing active listening, guiding communication, and ensuring all stakeholders feel genuinely heard, Mr. Shapiro empowers the parties to overcome emotional impasses, explore creative options, and ultimately retain control over crafting their own durable, mutually beneficial resolutions which avoid the stress, expense, and energy draining experience of litigation, allowing the parties to move forward with more fruitful endeavors.

Availability for Short-Notice Mediations

Because Mr. Shapiro manages an active AAA employment arbitration docket, his schedule frequently mirrors the trajectory of complex civil litigation. High-stakes arbitrations routinely settle in the months or weeks immediately preceding scheduled evidentiary hearings.

When these multi-day arbitration blocks suddenly clear, Mr. Shapiro intentionally repurposes that time window to accommodate short-notice mediations. This agile scheduling model allows parties to bypass the typical months-long wait to secure a premier mediator. Such flexibility provides an immediate, highly effective forum for litigants who have reached a sudden impasse, face impending trial deadlines, or require rapid, facilitative intervention to reach a settlement. 

Additionally, such availability allows for near immediate dispute resolution or settlement when employees and employers are suddenly faced with an unexpected, material dispute.