Sidney K. Kanazawa

Sidney K. Kanazawa serves as a mediator, arbitrator and trial lawyer with Alternative Resolution Centers (ARC) in Los Angeles, California. Over the course of more than 47 years, he has represented plaintiffs and defendants in jury and nonjury trials, arbitrations, administrative proceedings, crises, mediations and negotiations – both domestically and internationally. His practice spans a wide array of complex matters, including:

• Admiralty
• Antitrust
• Business and contract disputes
• Class actions
• Construction defect claims
• Education and employment issues
• Entertainment and environmental controversies
• Family law
• Government 
• Intellectual property cases
• Manufacturing and product-liability actions
• Natural disasters
• Personal injury
• Real estate
• Sports medicine

A consummate bridge-builder, Mr. Kanazawa transforms adversarial postures into collaborative inquiry. When an oil tanker’s grounding in the Port of Los Angeles threatened widespread unrest, he deftly quelled an angry crowd, settling 600 claims within two weeks and resolving over 2,000 claims in the ensuing three-month period.

Mr. Kanazawa’s signature approach – grounded in respectful listening, strategic empathy and well-timed interventions – has produced resolutions of multimillion-dollar controversies over lunch, an achievement he chronicled in his 2004 article “Apologies and Lunch,” which continues to be republished in legal and dispute-resolution journals.

Recently, at the Edelman Children’s Court, Mr. Kanazawa has guided estranged parents through negotiations over parenting time, transforming deep-seated animosity into durable, cooperative agreements in virtually every mediation he undertakes. He holds advanced credentials from Harvard’s Program on negotiation and Pepperdine University’s Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, and he directs and instructs courses for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.

A prolific author and sought-after speaker, Mr. Kanazawa shares his insights on apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation with legal and corporate audiences. He earned a B.Ed from the University of Hawaii and his J.D. from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. Licensed to practice in California and Hawaii, he provides mediation and advisory services to the Los Angeles Superior Court, the Hawaii Appellate Mediation Program and the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Mr. Kanazawa sits on the boards of the Academy of Court-Appointed Neutrals and the Southern California Mediation Association and is slated to serve as president of the Litigation Counsel of America in 2026. Additionally, he serves as an adjunct professor at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law.