Cedric Chao

Cedric Chao

Website http://www.chao-adr.com

Biography

After leading BigLaw teams for years in high stakes and precedent setting cases in U.S. courts and international arbitration tribunals, Cedric in 2019 launched Chao ADR, PC, now sitting as arbitrator and mediator and advising clients on cross-border disputes. Previously, Cedric was a partner for 29 years at the 1,000-lawyer firm Morrison & Foerster where in addition to his U.S. courtroom practice, he founded in 1996 and for 17 years thereafter led the firm's international litigation and arbitration practice. In 2013, Cedric moved to the 4,500 lawyer firm DLA Piper, serving for six years as its U.S. head of the global international arbitration practice.

Cedric has advocated all over the world, including five cases where the disputed amount exceeded $1 billion, and has argued 20 appellate cases in the U.S. courts including once to the U.S. Supreme Court and once to an 11-member en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He sat as second chair in five additional U.S. Court of Appeals matters and in a second U.S. Supreme Court case. Cedric combines practical commercial experience with legal acumen and is familiar with many industries and fields of practice.

In 2018, California's legal publication, The Daily Journal, named Cedric to its "Top 100 California Lawyers" list. In 2019, he received The Daily Journal's prestigious "California Lawyer of the Year" award for international arbitration. The publication Best Lawyers in America named Cedric the "2018 San Francisco Arbitration Lawyer of the Year," and two years later the "2020 San Francisco Mediation Lawyer of the Year." Best Lawyers gives this award to a single lawyer in a practice area and geographic region based on peer review.

Cedric is a Fellow of the invitation-only organizations Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (London), the College of Commercial Arbitrators, Litigation Counsel of America, and the American Law Institute, and formerly chaired the Litigation Section of the State Bar of California. He co-authored the Mediation Chapter in Thomson Reuters' treatise Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts (5th ed. 2021). Cedric graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Law School.