It has been my pleasure to mediate thousands of disputes for parties and lawyers from many varied geographical locations and backgrounds. I do not consider myself qualified to do family law/divorce/marital property rights mediations, and I have only done one car wreck mediation. But I have done just about everything else.
While a lot of my constituent parties and counsel think of me primarily as an employment mediator, and I do a lot of that, I have also done fire cases, a case about a defective bass boat, a case about millions of dollars of soup in Mexico and a matter involving bowling balls manufactured in Korea. I mediate a good deal of bankruptcy cases, and many involving business divorces – partnership dissolutions or corporate restructuring. I have done a number of construction-related disputes, from residences to office buildings. I have mediated disputes concerning wine and liquor in bonded warehouse facilities, and a dram-shop case involving a well-known sports bar. My current specialty is mediation of large and complex collective and class actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) on a national basis.
If repeat business is a compliment, then I feel pretty good about myself. One Dallas firm uses me almost exclusively. I have mediated quite a bit for Sea World, UPS, KBR and Halliburton. One prominent Plaintiffs’ FLSA attorney in Houston has used me 27 times, and one well-known national defense firm has used me 23 times. Here are some of the attorneys that I have had the pleasure of mediating with.
In arbitration, one might suspect that my reference list might be only half of the parties, because in arbitration I have to rule against one side or the other. So one side is normally not going to be happy. But as a form of silent compliment, my list of arbitration references actually includes a number of attorneys and companies that I have ruled against in a particular matter that continue to use me as an arbitrator. I will be happy to furnish that list of references upon request. My arbitrations have been as varied as my mediations. While a number of my arbitrations have involved some aspect of employment law, I have also arbitrated matters involving commercial leases, offshore drilling technology, payor/payee disputes between physician and insurance company, a lengthy fight over a non-compete agreement between hospital and doctor, a large breach of fiduciary duty/squeeze out case between partners and an international arbitration case involving the third-largest construction company in the world. I am also beginning to do more and more traditional labor/management arbitrations, and a good number of cases involving non-competition covenants, the duty of loyalty, fee disputes and fee/compensation forfeiture matters.