NEW YORK — If there’s anybody who can take the hot air out of football’s “Deflategate,” it’s a Manhattan federal judge with a history of encouraging fast resolutions to perplexing problems.

Judge Richard M. Berman quickly defined the ground rules in his first written orders after the National Football League and the NFL Players Association clashed over Commissioner Roger Goodell’s four-game suspension of New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady — that settling the case is a priority, the heated rhetoric must stop, documents will be public and Goodell and Brady will have to come to court.

Berman is the right judge to navigate the pressures of the Brady-Goodell showdown, said Judge William H. Pauley III, who presided over a lawsuit New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez brought against Major League Baseball last year over his suspension.

“Everybody’s under pressure, not just Tom Brady,” Pauley said. “If there’s anybody on our bench who can resolve a case, it’s Richard.”

Berman, 71, assigned randomly to the case, will preside over a hearing Aug. 12 after the league requested a judgment saying Goodell acted legally when he punished Brady after a league-sponsored investigation concluded the Patriots supplied improperly under-inflated footballs when New England topped the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 in the conference championship game. The union wants the suspension lifted, arguing that an arbitration that went against the quarterback was a sham.

The parties will be contending with “a famous settlement judge,” Chief Judge Loretta A. Preska said. “He’s very good at it. He understands people and the pressures on people and he’s always calm himself, never ruffled.”

Preska recalled introducing the one-time family court judge to his colleagues after his 1998 appointment to the bench by President Bill Clinton.

At the gathering of the 2nd Circuit Judicial Conference, she held up a pen that she said Berman gave lawyers when they settled cases. The pen, she noted, contained a quote from the first rule of civil procedure, which cautions that the rules should be “construed and administered to ensure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every action.”

Pauley said Berman’s unusually diverse background gives him additional tools to resolve cases, whether it was time spent as a senior aide to a U.S. senator or experience as an executive of a then-fledgling cable company that became a giant: Time Warner Cable.

Berman declined a request this week to be interviewed while the NFL dispute is ongoing. He told the New York Law Journal last year that he believes the role of a judge is to “justly” and “speedily” move civil cases to conclusion.

“This means that I pursue settlement options early and often; I try to rule on motions quickly,” he said.