Work ethic drives Elia Pirozzi's approach to dispute resolution

Retired judge Elia V. Pirozzi spent summers as a teenager working on construction and delivering pizzas in New York City.

"Both experiences were just fantastic," Pirozzi said, recalling with a chuckle that he didn't get paid. "All that really mattered to me was working with my dad and working with my uncles. It was probably the greatest learning experience I've ever had."

Pirozzi said he understood early that success needs to be earned.

"There were a lot of expectations to work as hard as you possibly can to achieve the goals you want," Pirozzi explained. "I'm very thankful for the people that were in my life when I was young who instilled that work ethic."

Pirozzi helped pay for law school, in part, by teaching trumpet lessons and working as a real estate broker, earning his degree from Southwestern University School of Law in 1982.

"My undergraduate degree was in music," Pirozzi said, noting that he performed as a symphonic trumpet player in Los Angeles before enrolling at Southwestern.

His real estate work, starting at 20, provided career-long benefits.

"I don't want to sound too boastful," he said, "but there's probably no real estate case or issue that I've not seen as a businessman, an attorney, judge or as a mediator or an arbitrator."

Pirozzi tackled real estate and business litigation as an attorney for 18 years before he was appointed in 2007 to the San Bernardino County Superior Court, where he served as a judge for nearly 15 years. He joined the JAMS roster of private neutrals in October 2024 and has since been working to resolve real estate, business, employment and personal injury disputes.

"I try not to forget what it was like to be on the other side of counsel table," Pirozzi said of his approach as an arbitrator. "I try not to waste their time, and I do what I can to make the lawyer's job as easy as possible in arbitration. And if I can take some of the weight off them to get them through their day, I do it with a keen eye on cost efficiency."

Pirozzi said he aims to limit arbitration costs and improve efficiency by holding informal discovery and motion conferences.

"If I know a motion's coming, or an attorney wants to make a motion, I'll say, 'Let's spend about 15 or 20 minutes together first before you file that motion,'" Pirozzi said, noting he applied the strategy while he was a judge.

"My success rate on the bench was about 95% resolving those discovery issues," he added. "And I would have to say it's pretty darn close to that now as an arbitrator."

Irvine litigator James S. Sifers used Pirozzi recently as an arbitrator in an auto dealership dispute in which the pro per opposition made a range of sovereign citizen claims.

"Judge Pirozzi was very patient with her," Sifers said. "And then he wrote a detailed opinion, explaining very clearly to her why all of her claims were essentially nonsense."

Describing Pirozzi as very knowledgeable, Sifers said he'd tell other attorneys considering the retired judge as an arbitrator that "he's going to play close attention to your case, and he's going to take the necessary time to actually get the right decision."

Sifers added that he appreciated Pirozzi's thorough explanation about why the opposition would not prevail.

"That's one of the best things you can do as an arbitrator is - regardless of how the claims are teed up - take the time to go through and draft an award that's going to be very clear," Sifers said. "It may not necessarily make it appellate proof, but to leave very little ground for any type of disturbance if ... there are any challenges."

As a mediator, Pirozzi insisted that preparation is critical, noting he tries to do a "deep dive" into each case with calls to counsel as well as thoroughly examining briefs and conducting his own legal research before mediation day.

"If you don't do the groundwork - if you don't do the trench work first, you're likely not going to be successful," he said.

He mentioned that one frustrating move attorneys occasionally make in mediation is determining early on that the case isn't going to resolve.

"Within maybe the first half hour, they'll say, 'This just isn't going to settle. We're not going anywhere. ... We're just wasting our time here, judge,'" Pirozzi said. "That's not helpful. I think you need to go into mediation with a complete open mind. I tell everybody, 'We have a full day, and we're going to be here together, and we're not going to leave until this case is settled.'"

Los Angeles litigator Nancy E. Gray used Pirozzi recently to mediate an employment dispute, and she appreciated the effort he put in beforehand.

"He's very detailed," Gray said. "He asks intelligent questions. He appreciates a well-written and detailed mediation brief that sets forth the salient and difficult issues."

Gray added that Pirozzi thoroughly weighed in on the case's strengths and weaknesses, but he did so tactfully.

"I can say that I respectfully disagreed with him, but I really appreciated his analysis, and I understood it," Gray recalled. "He was on point, and everything that he said made sense."

San Diego litigator Sean K. Kane used Pirozzi recently to mediate a Home Ownership Association case and described the neutral as a "straight shooter."

"He did a phenomenal job managing a lot of emotion, drilling down to the core of the issues," Kane said. "He was incredibly tenacious at trying to reach a resolution."

Despite the difficult nature of the case and its range of intense emotions, Kane said he appreciated that Pirozzi didn't give up.

"A lot of mediators will just throw their hands up and say, 'All right, we're done. We're not getting to an agreement.' And that's it," Kane explained. "Judge Pirozzi was not like that at all. He really invested himself impartially in the dispute and was really motivated to get the parties together to a resolution in a way that a lot of mediators, frankly, just aren't."

Pirozzi said he's most definitely still applying that work ethic he first learned as a teenager to his approach as a private neutral.

"I never give up," he said, "until the attorneys say they're tired of my calls and they just don't want to hear from me anymore."

Here are some attorneys who have used Pirozzi's services: Nancy E. Gray, Gray & Associates PC; Sean K. Kane, Berding & Weil LLP; James S. Sifers, Madison Law APC; Michael D. Stein, Tisdale & Nicholson LLP; Matthew D. Seltzer, Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek.