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Benjamin S. Stern

Attorney

Photo of Benjamin S. Stern

Benjamin S. Stern

Attorney

  • Telephone

  • Fax

    (414) 238-6661

  • Email

  • Office

    Milwaukee
    411 East Wisconsin Avenue
    Suite 1000
    Milwaukee, WI 53202

Ben Stern has practiced for more than 40 years in the areas of lease negotiation, commercial, residential, and retail development as well as complex contract drafting. Ben is also among the most respected mediators and arbitrators in southeast Wisconsin. Judges from throughout the region send him complex disputes. He is successful in assisting clients and lawyers in the resolution of the vast majority of disputes that come before him. He has chaired the mediation roundtable at the ICSC lawyers conference for several years.
     
Ben’s most recent successes include assisting a receiver in saving and selling a multi-million dollar hotel that sat incomplete and at risk of deterioration. Ben assisted the receiver in reducing the amount owed to lien holders and transferring the property free of encumbrances to a new owner. He also successfully assisted a Court while acting as a special administrator for a complicated estate matter involving the transfer of a complex retail operation.

My name is Ben Stern. I'm primarily a real estate attorney who in the last several decades has been, in addition to a real estate attorney, a special master, a mediator, an arbitrator, and an expert witness in mostly real estate-related matters.

What’s your mediation style?

The style is proactive. I believe when somebody comes to me for mediation or arbitration, they just don't want somebody to sit back and say “You're wonderful,” they want you to tell them your analysis of the case and what you think the outcome may be.

What should parties do prior to mediation?

I require a week prior to the mediation, the submission to me of a statement outlining the interests of the party in the dispute, usually limited as I said to five pages, together with additional documents that will help edify me so that I can helpfully resolve the matter.

What makes you a successful mediator?

Experience and tenacity. I like getting results and having done this for a relatively long period of time, I do have experience in basically most aspects of real estate law.

What types of cases are you skilled at mediating?

Anything real estate-related, whether it be tax contest, leases, development agreements, I've done those, and I've also been involved with contractual disputes and banking disputes, but primarily real estate-related activities.

Parting thought:

I tell clients that if they end up in protracted litigation they're going to be both uncomfortable and less profitable in the pocketbook because it's going to cost a lot of money in litigation, and if this can be resolved in mediation there will not be as much frenzy and the parties usually will end up happier.

  • University of Wisconsin, J.D., B.A.

  • Wisconsin
  • Illinois

  • Wisconsin Super Lawyers® (2005-2023)
  • AV Preeminent® Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell®