About Gary
Gary Benton has built a career that crosses practice, academia and institution building. He acts as an arbitrator and mediator in domestic and international disputes, teaches law part time, and runs his own dispute resolution practice.
He completed his legal education at Tulane University School of Law, earning a J.D. in 1984. His studies also included time at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco and at Stanford University, both noted on his record in 1984 for legal and international studies. He holds a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, awarded in 1981.
Benton moved into private practice soon after law school. He served as a partner at Coudert Brothers beginning in 1987 and later joined Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP as a partner in 2005. In 2009 he stepped into an in-house role as chief legal officer and vice president of corporate development for a privately held cloud and mobile cybersecurity company. That combination of firm and corporate work informs his handling of technology and commercial disputes.
Parallel to his firm work, Benton has maintained an arbitration and mediation practice. He established Gary Benton Arbitration and has been listed as a U.S., U.K. and international arbitrator and mediator. He founded the Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center in 2011 and has served as its chairman since 2012. In 2021 he launched California Arbitration (CalArb) and serves as founder and CEO. He has also taught as an adjunct faculty member at Santa Clara University School of Law and as an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law.
He is active in a number of professional organizations. His memberships include the District of Columbia Bar, the International Council for Commercial Arbitration, the International Bar Association and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. He co-chairs a committee of the California Lawyers Association and is involved with the Institute for Transnational Arbitration and the Northern California International Arbitration Association. His affiliations span U.S. and international arbitration groups focused on commercial and technology disputes.
Benton is admitted to practice in California and the District of Columbia and is listed for appearances before several federal courts, including the Ninth Circuit, the Federal Circuit, the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. He divides his time between case work, institutional leadership at arbitration centers and teaching, and currently concentrates his practice on arbitration, mediation and dispute resolution in commercial and technology matters.
