Chris Mason is a litigator well known for his extensive experience in class action defense, arbitration, and complex financial disputes. He typically represents consumer products, technology, financial services, private equity, or industrial companies in state or federal trial and appellate courts, in domestic arbitration and mediation or in regulatory inquiries. Chris, the deputy head of the firm’s Class Action team, is a member of the firm's Cybersecurity and Privacy team, and leads the firm’s Arbitration team of over 150 attorneys. He also has extensive experience in mediation, both representing parties and as a neutral, in a wide variety of cases.
My primary goal as a lawyer is to help businesses manage the risks and outcomes of significant disputes.
I have defended many large class or mass actions and prosecuted or defended significant cases in more than half of the states in the country, in numerous federal courts and before the American Arbitration Association, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, and FINRA. I have successfully resolved well over 100 cases in mediation as a mediator or party.
Procedurally, the landscape on dispute resolution is continuing to change, with the COVID-19 pandemic having only accelerated it. Having drafted some of the most widely used arbitration clauses in the country and seen (and encouraged) the dramatic increase in the successful use of mediation, including in virtual environments, I believe it has become even more important for businesses to reassess on a constant basis their contracts and dispute resolution programs.
Substantively, I see a resurgence in government enforcement of consumer and civil rights protections at all levels, matched or exceeded only by an increase in the importance of privacy issues, both in the consumer and employment context. And while technology can help in many areas of the law, still nothing beats a lawyer willing to read every word of the relevant documents when complex disputes occur.
Law Clerk to the Honorable J. Clifford Wallace, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Banking Law Journal | April 26, 2022
This contributed article by Complex Disputes partners Chris Queenin in Boston and Chris Mason in New York, and Boston partner and Privacy & Technology group leader Jason Kravitz, covers the new federal rule requiring financial institutions to report certain high-risk computer-security incidents within 36 hours after the incident occurs, following a trend of increased federal oversight involving cybersecurity.
Law360 | August 26, 2020
In this article on the Ninth Circuit’s decision which found that Amazon delivery drivers are exempt from mandatory arbitration, New York Complex Commercial Disputes partner Chris Mason is quoted for his thoughts on arbitration agreements and the importance of how choice of law clauses operate.
Duke University School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude (Order of the Coif)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, B.A., summa cum laude (Phi Beta Kappa)
New York
District of Columbia
U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York
U.S. District Court, Northern District of New York
U.S. District Court, Western District of New York
U.S. District Court, District of Columbia
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
U.S. Supreme Court
Chris was selected, through a peer-review survey, for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2022 in the field of Commercial Litigation. He has been listed in Best Lawyers since 2020.
Chris has been recognized each year from 2006 to the present for his exceptional standing in the legal community in the area of Business Litigation in New York Super Lawyers.
Chris is a member of the Board of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar’s leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination.
Chris has also served on the Executive Advisory Committee of CPR: International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution. He is a member of the American Bar Association (Litigation Section, Committee on Commercial and Banking Litigation; Antitrust Section); the New York City Bar Association (former member of the Professional Discipline Committee, the Professional Responsibility Committee, the Consumer Affairs Committee, and the Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee); the New York State Bar Association (Commercial and Federal Litigation Section, Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee); and the Federal Bar Council. He has taught at the New York State Judicial Institute, is a member of the Mediation Advisory Committee of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, is regularly appointed as a mediator by the judges of that court, and also serves on the mediation panel for the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Commercial Division.
Chris serves and has served as an director, trustee, officer, or committee member for many educational, charitable, or religious organizations at the local and national level, ranging from a charity doing long-term recovery work on the Hurricane Sandy disaster in New York City (of which he was a founding officer), to a multibillion-dollar pension fund (of which he was the chair of the governance committee and a member of the executive committee), to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, to one of the country’s largest protestant Christian denominations (of which he has been the co-chair of its corporation, an entity dating back to 1799). He also serves as the Moderator of the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of New York City, in effect the chief judge in New York City for ecclesiastical litigation in that denomination.