Lawrence Howard Kolin

Lawrence Kolin brings parties and their counsel together online or in person to settle difficult cases by mediating lawsuits in state, federal and appellate courts. He helps gets litigants back to life and business, having successfully mediated thousands of civil matters, including multi-party and complex cases of all types since 2001. Lawrence formerly served as a General Magistrate in the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, presiding over hearings and bench trials. He is also experienced in conducting arbitrations as a qualified arbitrator since 2005. Lawrence is an AV Peer Review Rated Preeminent™ Super Lawyer® with over of 30 years of practice experience, having advocated in diverse areas of civil trial work for both plaintiff and defense when he was a partner in a statewide law firm. Lawrence has appeared at some fifty courthouses in Florida’s 67 counties. He’s acted as a full-time neutral since 2010, devoting his energy entirely to advancing dispute resolution and a dozen years ago brought his skills to UWWM. Active in local and state bar associations, Lawrence chaired a major effort to modernize Florida Civil Procedure Rules to include E-Discovery. He is a noted speaker in legal seminars and webinars, teaching as faculty at the Advanced Judicial College, Bench Bar Conference, ACEDS, The Masters Conference for Legal Professionals, and lecturing at many colleges and law schools. A Graduate Faculty Scholar at the University of Central Florida, he has been an Assistant Professor at the College of Medicine, taught Health Law in the College of Community Innovation, Real Estate Law at the College of Business and Negotiation in Practice through the Department of Legal Studies, as well as coached UCF’s award-winning competitive Mediation Team and now serves on the Legal Studies Advisory Board. Lawrence frequently writes for legal publications such as Thomson Reuters Practical Law Arbitration series, Orange County Bar Association Briefs magazine, The Professional, ABA Just Resolutions, FJA Journal and is often quoted as an authority in The Florida Bar News and was featured as the Ask A Lawyer columnist for The Orlando Sentinel newspaper. Lawrence also authors Orlando Mediator, which he started writing in 2010, and it was soon recognized as an official ABA Journal ‘Blawg.’ Lawrence was even voted a top blogger nationally for the legal news category by The Expert Institutem and his blog is Top 10 for Mediation
according to ADR Times and rated among national publishers as a Top 5 Dispute Resolution Blog by Feedspot. Additionally, he is often a guest podcaster and was most recently interviewed for The Practice Playbook Podcast With Susan Guthrie in The Mediator’s Edge: Experience, Intuition, and the Skills That Endure. Previously, he joined a former chief judge, who is now a UWWM colleague, on the groundbreaking Open Ninth official court podcast for an interview about his insights into mediation. Lawrence helped deliver the opening plenary on the evolution of artificial intelligence in mediation at the 32nd annual Dispute Resolution Conference and was featured as a guest regarding thought leadership on the popular The Practice Playbook podcast. For his efforts on behalf of abused and neglected children, Lawrence was honored with The Florida Bar Legal Aid Public Service Award presented in conjunction with the prestigious Tobias Simon Pro Bono Award at The Supreme Court of Florida. He’s been counted among Florida Trend’s Legal Elite in Arbitration & Mediation, listed as one of Orlando Business Journal’s Most Influential Businessmen, selected as Mediator of the Month™ in Attorney at Law magazine and identified as a Top ADR Lawyer and Attorney of the Year in Orlando Life and Orlando Style magazines. He also serves as a founding board member of the Maccabee Bar Association. Lawrence was proudly named a Litigation Trailblazer and Pioneer™ by the National Law Journal for his innovative work in alternative dispute resolution practice. He founded the ADR Committee of the OCBA and was twice elected to the Executive Council of The Florida Bar ADR Section and continues to contribute as an Emeritus Member. Lawrence was raised in Central Florida, where he resides with his wife and two daughters. His family gives their time and talents to many local causes.