William J. Caplan, Esq.

A full-time mediator since 2001, Bill joined Judicate West in 2018. Almost 30 years ago, his litigation practice at Rutan & Tucker focused on business, real estate, and construction cases. He started mediating as a settlement officer for the Orange County Superior Court in 1990, and for the Los Angeles Superior Court in 2001. As a result of decades of mediation experience for the courts as well as privately, he has resolved all types of personal injury, intellectual property, and employment matters among a wide variety of other disputes. Bill also taught mediation as an adjunct professor at Chapman Law School.
With a passion for helping people in mediation, Bill believes that, beyond performing a valuable professional service, helping people settle a dispute makes the parties' lives better by ending risky, expensive and emotionally taxing litigation, sometimes before it starts.
He spends hours preparing, including pre-mediation phone calls with the lawyers and has worked to develop a toolset for mediation. Bill uses the tools that work best to settle a particular case. According to Bill, "In many disputes, understanding the key facts and legal principles may be at the center of achieving resolution, a creative realignment of the settlement pieces may be the key in another, and in a third, showing empathy and gaining the trust of the parties might be the central focus."
Recently, an attorney summarized Bill's mediation abilities: "You did the critical job of articulating the important issues and expressing points favoring a settlement in a case that was fraught with emotion. I wholeheartedly believe that without your participation, the parties would not have had the ability to reach a settlement. Thank you most of all for staying so late... a positive experience and outcome for everyone."

wcaplan@judicatewest.com
(714) 834-1340
www.judicatewest.com