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Daniel F. Kolb

Dispute Resolution Section
Committee on Diversity, Co-Chair

Dan Kolb is a Senior Counsel at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.  Before assuming that role, Dan was a litigation partner at Davis Polk, where he served both as Head of the Washington office and Practice Coordinator of the Davis Polk Litigation Department.  As a litigator for many years Dan successfully handled a long list of high profile matters with significant client exposure.  His clients included major accounting firms, financial and industrial corporations, law firms, and a range of public interest organizations.  Dan participated as an advocate in extended trials in courts throughout the United States and presented appellate argument in numerous Federal Circuit and State Appellate Courts.  He has also participated in significant arbitrations and mediations as both a neutral and an advocate. 

Dan’s significant matters have most often centered on issues as to financial reporting, including alleged fraud and non-disclosure, contract interpretation, banking, financial institution and other significant business failures, U.S. and state jurisdiction, major issues of Constitutional law and complex antitrust and estate matters.

Dan is a Member of the American College of Trial Lawyers.  He served for many years as Chair of its National and New York Access to Justice Committees and as a Member of its Committee for the selection of new members from the downstate New York bar.  He has also received the Gould Award for Outstanding Advocacy which is presented each year by the Office of the Appellate Defender.

He is a member of the CPR Panel of Distinguished Neutrals and CPR’s Mediation Committee, the ADR Section of the American Bar Association and the New York State Bar Dispute Resolution Section, serving on the Arbitration and Mediation Committees and as co-chair of the Diversity Committee.  He is on the Roster of Mediators for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and Supreme Court New York County's Commercial Division and has been appointed as a Special Master in New York’s Appellate Division First Department to conduct mediations.  He also has served as Chair of the ADR Subcommittee of the New York State Bar’s Task Force focused on the use of New York Law in International Transactions and New York as a forum for International Arbitrations.

Dan served for three years as Chair of the Judiciary Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Committee at the Association charged with assessing the qualifications of both federal and State Judges in New York City.  At the City Bar he has also served as Chair of the Executive, Federal Courts and Litigation Committees and is currently a member of the audit committee.  He has served as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Aid Society of New York, currently as a Vice-Chair, as National Co-Chair of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Brennan Center for Justice where he chairs the Audit Committee.