James E. Morris
Brighton Town Justice – 33 years
Former President- New York Magistrates Association
Past Faculty of Office of Court Administration, Instructing Town Justices
Distinguished Fellow of the American College of Civil Trial Mediators
Member of Executive Committee –Tort Insurance and Compensation Law Section of New York State Bar Association
James E. Morris is an experienced litigator, judge, and mediator and a long-time principal in Morris & Morris. Over the course of his distinguished career representing clients, he has settled or tried numerous cases, many involving multi-million dollar settlements, and total settlements now exceed $20 million.
In addition, he served for 33 years as a Brighton (NY) Town Justice, and periodically served as Acting City Court Judge for the City of Rochester (NY). He is a former president of the New York State Magistrates Association and recipient of its Magistrate of the Year award.
He has been recognized since 2005 in each annual edition of The Best Lawyers in America, a publication universally regarded as a guide to legal excellence in the United States. Listing in the publication is the result of an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 16,000 of the leading attorneys in the nation confidentially evaluate their professional peers. Mr. Morris has most recently been nominated for Fellowship in the honorary trial lawyer society, Litigation Counsel of America.
James Morris also holds Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review’s AV rating (the highest possible), which is considered the gold standard in the legal community. The rating is based on the confidential opinions of bar association members and the judiciary, and attests to his professional legal ability and ethics.
In 2002 he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American College of Civil Trial Mediators, an elite nationwide group of mediators and dispute resolution professionals known for their skill, ethical standards, and professional commitment and is now a member of the Board of Directors for that professional organization. For more than 20 years, plaintiffs’ attorneys, defense attorneys, in-house counsel, insurers, and business professionals throughout Upstate New York have turned to him to mediate or arbitrate high-end liability, contract, and commercial disputes. He is particularly adept at mediating complex cases, which involve either significant financial issues and/or numerous parties, and has an outstanding record getting the parties to reach settlement. He mediated or arbitrated a total of more than 3,000 such disputes in his career as a neutral attorney.