Hon. Harold B. Beeler (Ret.)

Hon. Harold B. Beeler served as an acting New York Supreme Court Justice in Manhattan from 1991 to 2009. Prior to his appointment as a Supreme Court Justice, he was elected as a Judge in the Civil Court of the City of New York three times, serving from 1988 to 2009. Judge Beeler also worked as a Law Clerk for Judge Lawrence Bernstein and at the Legal Aid Society of New York as a staff attorney. He was selected for inclusion in the 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 New York Super Lawyers Listing.

Judge Beeler obtained his J.D. from Harvard Law School (cum laude), his B.A. from the University of Michigan (magna cum laude, phi beta kappa) and an LL.M. in taxation from New York University School of Law. In December 2009, he retired from his position on the bench to pursue a full-time career as a mediator and arbitrator with NAM (National Arbitration and Mediation). He has received extensive training and certification in ADR and has completed a 42-Hour Mediation Training with the Center for Mediation & Training, Intensive Mediation Training at the Center for Mediation in Law and the New York State Bar Commercial Mediation Training Program. In 2010, he was appointed Special Master tomediate appeals at the First Department, Appellate Division.

Judge Beeler is a hard-working and detail-oriented jurist whose even-handed demeanor makes him highly-effective in facilitating the resolution of complex matters. He is particularly adept at winning the confidence of counsel and clients alike. Judge Beeler has presided over a wide-variety of high-profile matters which coupled with his extensive legal and educational background makes him ideal for complex, multi-party cases.

Some representative matters include, an employment disciplinary case involving an ob-gyn doctor affiliated with Mount Sinai hospital who had been artificially increasing the number of births from the women under his care by drug- inducing labor; a products liability case against a large electronics manufacturer for a defective DVD player, which ignited a fire within a residential home; and an intellectual property case, alleging the unauthorized use of a high profile sportswear brand’s label on imported goods from India.

Judge Beeler also has presided over complex employment cases some of which include, violations of New York’s Whistleblower Statute (Labor Law section 740) wherein a unionized employee alleged economic retaliation for disclosing the existence of unattended tankers holding dangerous PCP chemicals; a sex discrimination lawsuit brought by a Columbia University tenured mathematics professor for underpaying her and other women professors compared to male professors; and violations of State and City Human Rights laws including one involving a seamstress in the fur department of a major department store who claimed she was discriminated against because she was Greek; and a suit brought by a New York City public school teacher who claimed discrimination because of her Colombian heritage.