Paul Simon is the founder and CEO of Business Mediation Network. Paul serves as a business mediator and arbitrator and is one of the principal trainers for BMN’s Mediator Training program. He is a frequent speaker at business conferences and webinars, as well as a guest lecturer at graduate business and law schools, on the futility of most business lawsuits and how to use mediation as part of an efficient dispute resolution program. Paul has taught continuing education courses in conflict management for professional organizations and designs mediation programs for industry and trade associations.
Paul received his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law where he was Note and Comment Editor of the Northwestern University Law Review. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame. Paul completed Mediation Skills Training at Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies. He is a civil mediator for the Circuit Courts in Cook, DuPage and Will Counties in the State of Illinois and is a FINRA Dispute Resolution Arbitrator.
Following a judicial clerkship for Judge Latham Castle of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Paul Simon was a commercial trial lawyer in private law practice before serving as a corporate General Counsel for private and public corporations.
Having investigated, managed, litigated and resolved hundreds of disputes involving a wide range of issues, Paul brings a wealth of experience and perspective, as well as a number of trial anecdotes, to every presentation, training program and mediation conference. Savvy and scrupulously fair as a mediator, Paul encourages the parties in conflict to look forward not back and to consider their broader interests beyond prevailing in a particular trial or arbitration.
Paul is a licensed attorney in Illinois and Wisconsin (WI inactive) and has been admitted to practice before the US Supreme Court, the US Courts of Appeal for the 7th and 9th Circuits, the US District Courts for the Northern District of Illinois, the Eastern District of Michigan and the District of Hawaii. He has appeared in state and federal courts in Arkansas, California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin. He is a member of the Illinois State Bar Association (Alternative Dispute Resolution Section) and the State Bar of Wisconsin.