Avoiding Ethical Pitfalls in ADR

Since beginning her law career in 1992, Andrea Bonina has concentrated almost exclusively on significant plaintiff’s personal injury cases. Andrea is now managing partner of the firm, which handles medical malpractice, product liability, and other complex personal injury litigation.

Andrea is a frequent lecturer on litigation and practice management topics. She is the past president of the Brooklyn Bar Association and current Foundation Trustee. She obtained an “AV” rating from Martindale Hubbell, which is the highest rating for skills and ethics. Andrea has earned the respect of her peers and has been featured in the New York Times “Super Lawyers” section since 2007 as one of the finest plaintiff’s product liability litigators in New York. She has been included in the New York Area’s Top Rated Lawyers since 2012. Andrea has received numerous awards and honors including the Brooklyn Bar Association’s Vivian H. Agress Trailblazer Award and the Brooklyn Bar Association’s Distinguished Service Award.

Andrea’s decision to practice law is an outgrowth of her commitment to helping others. As Co-Chair of an annual fund-raising drive for St. Jude Children’s Hospital from 1992 through 2006, Andrea raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for children stricken with catastrophic diseases. Andrea is also a founder and past co-chair of the annual Liz Padilla Memorial 5K race to benefit the Brooklyn Bar Association’s Volunteer Lawyer Project. The race raises money to provide pro bono legal services and programs to needy Brooklyn residents.

In 2020, the Honorable Elizabeth Bonina was voted the #1 Mediator and #1 Arbitrator in New York State by the New York Law Journal Best Of Survey. As a former Justice of the Supreme Court, Kings County, she facilitates the settlement of cases involving a range of areas of practice including personal injury, premises liability, labor law, sports and recreation, and employment law cases. More significantly, it is Judge Bonina’s skill as a mediator and arbitrator that makes her an effective neutral as she is known for her intelligence, determination, patience, and ability to get even the most complex, highly emotional and contentious cases resolved.

It is to her credit that she has been ranked #1 Arbitrator in the state four times in the last eight years and has been consistently voted a Top Ten Mediator by the New York legal community for the last 11 years.

Representative matters over which she presided while serving as a Justice of the Supreme Court include a complex multi-party commercial case involving the removal of the director of the board without cause, and the dissolution of the company including shareholder rights; a major class action law suit involving a class of employees who alleged unlawful deductions from their wages and a landlord tenant case involving an alleged invasion of privacy due to newly installed surveillance cameras.

Judge Bonina’s past judicial and administrative experience includes serving as a court examiner/referee pursuant to Article 81 of the Mental Hygiene Law in the Appellate Division, Second Department where she conducted hearings, received testimony and issued recommendations to the Supreme Court Justices presiding over IAS Part 76. In 1998, she was appointed to the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission as an Administrative Law Judge. During her tenure as an Administrative Law Judge, Judge Bonina went from conducting hearings and rendering decisions, to the Appeals Division where she conducted appellate review of ALJ decisions, to Assistant Chief Administrative Law Judge in charge of supervising all Judges at the various agency tribunals, to Chief Administrative Law Judge. She served at the Taxi & Limousine Commission for over four years until she was appointed by Governor George Pataki as a Justice of the Supreme Court in the Second Judicial District.

Additionally, as an adjunct professor for St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn, New York for the past 15 years, Judge Bonina teaches undergraduate courses in Business Law, Sports Law and Sports and Recreation Law.

Since joining our panel, Judge Bonina has both mediated and arbitrated a wide variety of cases including labor law, employment, and personal injury cases with complex coverage issues.