BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Keith L. Seat is a full-time mediator and arbitrator who can effectively assist parties in resolving a wide range of telecommunications, antitrust and other commercial disputes. With over twenty years of legal experience as a mediator, arbitrator, litigator, advocate before executive branch agencies, and key staffer in the legislative and judicial branches, Mr. Seat brings a wealth of experience to his work as a mediator and arbitrator to help parties reach successful resolutions of complex disputes.

Mr. Seat began his legal career in a federal clerkship with U.S. District Judge William H. Becker, and then litigated antitrust and commercial disputes for many years at a major Washington law firm, Howrey, Simon, Arnold & White, where he first worked on telecom and technology issues. In 1993, Mr. Seat was named General Counsel of the Antitrust, Business Rights and Competition Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, where he served for four years, playing a significant role in the enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Returning to the private sector in 1997, Mr. Seat rounded out his experience with a senior in-house counsel position at MCI, one of the nation’s largest telecommunications firms. At MCI, he gained a first-hand appreciation for the important perspective brought to issues and disputes by in-house decision-makers. Mr. Seat also deepened his knowledge of telecom issues and gained experience addressing competition-related issues in the corporate setting, as well as helping resolve disputes among large organizations.

Mr. Seat has significant experience in working to find common ground among companies, groups and government agencies on deeply-held policy positions and related matters. He has had notable success in bringing divergent groups together to reach outcomes satisfactory for all involved. In private practice, Mr. Seat participated in various forms of alternative dispute resolution as an advocate, as well as a neutral. While on the Hill, he worked with numerous parties seeking inconsistent outcomes on telecommunications, antitrust and other policy issues, and was often able to help the various sides coalesce around a concept and formulation that all could support. For example, in the Digital Performance Rights in Sound Recordings Act, many months of effort nearly floundered on the inability of the recording industry and the U.S. Department of Justice to work out adequate antitrust language. After many discussions of the issue, Mr. Seat brought both sides together and in a single session worked out language acceptable to all that enabled quick enactment. Similarly, in the International Antitrust Enforcement Assistance Act, he worked with concerned parties to resolve legitimate confidentiality issues raised by commercial interests while still achieving the international law enforcement goals behind the legislation.

As a full time neutral, Mr. Seat regularly and successfully mediates litigated matters that range from challenging commercial disputes to intractable workplace conflicts. He mediates disputes between corporations, court-referred cases, insurance matters, and on behalf of federal agencies, among others. He has worked with a wide range of corporations to achieve common policy positions and consistent advocacy on complex high-tech issues before the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Justice and other federal agencies. In addition, Mr. Seat has worked with non-profits and facilitated numerous large community meetings to work through contentious issues. He has extensively assisted a non-profit in obtaining consensus on a variety of development and design issues in million dollar renovations, along with the related programmatic issues and growth plans implicated by building out facilities. Mr. Seat regularly conducts arbitrations under the auspices of the National Arbitration Forum.

Mr. Seat conducts mediation training and has trained mediators from numerous federal agencies. He provides CLE seminars on mediation and is a regular speaker around the country at conferences of the antitrust bar, Chamber of Commerce, and other groups. Mr. Seat’s experience covers a wide range of industries, including Telecommunications, Cable TV, Electricity, Insurance and Reinsurance, Health Care, Defense, Airlines, Labor, Professional Sports, Psychiatric Services, Railroads, Computer Software, Oil and Petroleum, Mining and Mineral Processing, Tire Manufacturing and Distribution, Tankers and Shipping, Aggregates, Real Estate and Computer Hardware.

Mr. Seat’s emphasis as a mediator is on working with the parties to reach a satisfactory resolution of the dispute if at all possible, while helping the parties to continue or restore business relationships when feasible in order to add value and minimize the negative impact of the conflict on the parties. Mr. Seat’s calm demeanor and reflective approach are much appreciated by the parties, as he seeks to make the dispute resolution process as productive and painless as possible, both for parties and counsel. Mr. Seat was raised in Japan, studied abroad during college, and has a great deal of international experience across a range of professional matters and travels, making him effective in cross-cultural disputes.

Mr. Seat was trained in mediation at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law, where he more recently attended the 2003 invitation-only Masters Forum. He received advanced mediation training from Linda Singer and Michael Lewis of the Center for Dispute Settlement in Washington, D.C. Mr. Seat holds a J.D. (with distinction) from the University of Missouri School of Law, and a B.A. (summa cum laude) from William Jewell College. Among other professional associations, Mr. Seat is an active member of the prestigious International Academy of Mediators, the American Bar Association’s Section of Dispute Resolution, the Maryland State Bar Association’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Section, the D.C. Bar Association’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee of the Litigation Section, and the Association for Conflict Resolution.