Commuting a career

By CRISSA SHOEMAKER DEBREE
Bucks County Courier Times
December 20, 2005

Peter Scarpato keeps his last train ticket to New York City on his desk at home.It's less of a reminder of what he gave up - a six-figure salary working for one of the country's largest insurance firms - than it is what he gained - a chance to work at home with his family and do something he loves.On the wall is a penny that Scarpato found, heads up, in the street the day he resigned. It's a symbol of his hope for success, he said.Scarpato is an arbitrator, serving as judge and jury between warring parties who don't want to take their cases to court. He started his company, Conflict Resolved LLC, in March after leaving AIG Insurance, where he managed one of the company's profit centers."It was a grind," said Scarpato, who had a four-hour commute each day from his Lower Makefield home to Manhattan. "The company was good to me, but my background had been in dispute resolution" not management.After graduating from Rutgers Law School in Camden (where he met his wife, Paula Weiss), Scarpato started his career at a large New Jersey law firm, doing front-end litigation. He then spent 12 years as general counsel for the American Centennial Insurance Co., which became part of AIG. It was at Centennial that he met fellow arbitrators and realized he enjoyed the give and take of arbitration over the win-lose drama of the courtroom."I realized I not only enjoy the process, the truth of the matter is it's a very good gig," he said.Armed with a database of 900 addresses, Scarpato launched his business in March with mass mailings, cold calls and seminars, where he signed himself up as a speaker to gain recognition. The tactics worked.

While Scarpato, 50, and his family prepared for the "we're cutting back" phase, in which they considered selling their Jersey Shore home, Scarpato was so busy that by the summer his wife was begging him to take a vacation.

"I wish I had done it a little sooner," he said. "But I felt I was really prepared."Arbitration is an informal, less costly way than lawsuits to resolve disputes. Many employment contracts require arbitration to resolve matters. Typically, the parties pick their own arbitrators, who pick a third to be the tiebreaker. The decision an arbitrator or arbitration panel makes is final.In mediation cases, the mediator basically works as a referee, trying to get the two sides to sit down and talk. The mediator doesn't make the final decision, but lets the parties work out their differences and come to an agreement.Scarpato is a licensed attorney in New Jersey and New York, but not Pennsylvania. An arbitrator does not have to be a licensed attorney, he said.Since March, Scarpato has attracted about 30 clients; all of those cases are still open, and he could not discuss them or his clients because of confidentiality agreements. A typical arbitration lasts about 18 months, while mediation cases can be over in a day.Scarpato's fees start around $325 an hour for mediation cases, $350 for arbitration. He specializes in business, contractual and civil cases and does not do domestic or family disputes.Scarpato sees arbitration and mediation as a means to be a part of a solution, rather than zealously representing a client."When I first started practicing law, I knew a lot of what lawyers do with cases is settle," he said. "I knew I had to learn how to negotiate. I enjoyed that give and take and working with people to resolve a problem."

Crissa Shoemaker DeBree can be reached at 215-949-4192 or cshoemaker@phillyBurbs.com. Web Link to Article