Erik S. Groothuis
Mr. Groothuis, the founder and administrator of the Same-Day Justice Program, has spent 20 years litigating commercial disputes of all types. He is a certified mediator trained by the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution.
Although his practice focuses on the financial services and real estate industries, Mr. Groothuis has represented clients in accounting malpractice, business divorce, breach of contract, corporate governance, defamation, insurance, investor and securities fraud, and business torts litigation as well as related appeals.
Mr. Groothuis received his A.B. in Economics from Columbia College in 1994 (Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude) and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1997 (cum laude).
From 1997 to 1999, Mr. Groothuis clerked for the Honorable Whitman Knapp of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Before joining the Firm in 2008, Mr. Groothuis was associated with the law firms of Cleary Gottlieb LLP (from 1999 to 2001) and Heller Ehrman LLP (from 2002 to 2008).
Mr. Groothuis is a member of the New York Bar, as well as the Bar of the United States District Courts for the Eastern, Southern and Western Districts of New York.
In January 2014, Mr. Groothuis was elected Vice President of the New York American Inn of Court. The mission of the Inn is to foster excellence in professionalism, ethics, civility, and legal skills. The Inn’s membership of approximately 150 attorneys consists of judges, government and public interest lawyers, and private practitioners of all ages.
Mr. Groothuis also served as the President of Temple Judea in Manhasset, New York from 2016 to 2018.
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Jonathan Mazer
Mr. Mazer is an arbitrator, mediator and litigator. Mr. Mazer has been an arbitrator with Same-Day Justice since its inception. He is also a Partner at the law firm of Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP where he has practiced since 2008. He acts as a New York County Commercial Division Neutral conducting mediations of commercial cases. In addition, Mr. Mazer is a trial lawyer with a broad litigation background who has represented litigants extensively at mediation, arbitration and in all stages of litigation from inception through appeal in a wide variety of commercial and other types of cases.
Mr. Mazer got his start in real estate litigation and trial work in the housing court, and has handled countless matters over the years ranging from simple non-payment cases to complex holdover and enforcement proceedings representing both landlords and tenants, many of which were litigated through trial and appeal. On the landlord-tenant side, he presently focuses on complex housing matters such as enforcement proceedings involving distressed buildings, disputes between co-op owners and their landlords, non-primary residence cases and commercial housing cases. In addition, he has a varied real estate docket.
Mr. Mazer has represented various ground transportation businesses including black car dispatch bases, messenger businesses, and airport transport businesses and related trade organizations in a variety of disputes before the courts and administrative tribunals. Many of these disputes concerned the independent contractor status of the worker affiliated with the dispatcher. This issue is being presented with increasing frequency by the growing number of “gig economy” workers who get referrals for a wide range of jobs.
Mr. Mazer’s trial work has been primarily focused on New York State Courts and administrative tribunals, and private arbitration. He has acted as lead counsel in numerous state court trials–both bench and jury–as well as administrative trials and arbitrations, often becoming involved in cases when they are trial ready or otherwise considered unlikely to settle. As lead counsel, he examines key witness and directs or participates in all aspects of trial.
Mr. Mazer has been a member of the NYC Bar Association’s Transportation Committee since 2011 and was its Chairman from 2013 to 2016. Between 2004 and 2007, he was a member of the Association’s Corrections Committee, and was Chairman of the sub-committee on prison libraries. He was a member of the Association’s Housing Court Committee from 2000 to 2003. He is also a member of the Federal Bar Council and the American Bar Association.
Mr. Mazer received his B.A. with “Outstanding Academic Performance” from State University of New York at Binghamton in 1990, and his J.D. from New York University Law School in 1994. Mr. Mazer was also the recipient of a full scholarship to study at the New York University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences where, in 1992, he earned an M.A. in Philosophy with a specialization in Ethics. During law school, Mr. Mazer was a legal intern for Choice in Dying in the summer of 1992, for the Correctional Association of New York – AIDS in Prison Project in the summer of 1993, and for Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem in 1993 and1994. Mr. Mazer was an associate at Baden Kramer Huffman & Brodsky, P.C., a litigation boutique, between 1994 and 2002, and then joined Fox Horan Camerini LLP, an international law firm, as an associate but was promoted to Partner before leaving in 2008 to join Schlam Stone as a Partner.
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Administrative staff
Violet Nieves
Ethan Yaro