Cedric Chao led Morrison & Foerster's international litigation and arbitration practice from 1996 to 2013 and was the U.S. head of DLA Piper's international arbitration practice from 2013 to 2019. He established Chao ADR, PC in 2019, and sits as an arbitrator and mediator, in addition to selectively accepting engagements as counsel or advisor in precedential matters. In 2018 Cedric was named by California's legal publication, The Daily Journal, as one of "California's Top 100 Lawyers." In 2019, he received The Daily Journal's prestigious California Lawyer Attorney of the Year award for thought leadership in international arbitration. Best Lawyers in America named Cedric the 2018 San Francisco Arbitration Lawyer of the Year and the 2020 San Francisco Mediation Lawyer of the Year, based on peer feedback. He was an Advisor to the ALI project to draft the Restatement of the U.S. Law of International Commercial and Investor-State Arbitration, and is the co-author of the Mediation chapter in Thomson Reuters' treatise, Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts (5th ed. 2021).