Timely and clear awards
Before becoming a professional neutral, I spent a career in private legal practice and labor relations, including eight years as the California State University’s Associate Vice Chancellor for Labor and Employee Relations, where I was chief negotiator for 13 bargaining units and 65,000 represented employees, and for several years headed the systemwide Equal Employment Opportunity and Whistleblower Protection unit. As a heavy user of labor arbitrator services, I understand the real costs of late or ambiguous awards. Having made the transition, I have made it my practice to normally issue awards within 21 days of the record closing and provide a comprehensive analysis as to how I came to each of my determinations. As a former advocate, I understand the process from the attorneys’ perspective. Counsel may not always agree with my determinations, but the award will leave no room for uncertainty as to how, and why, they were reached.
Practiced as an advocate, experienced on both sides of the table
I practiced as both a barrister and solicitor advocate in England and Wales for some 15 years before moving to California. Starting out as a criminal prosecutor, I then moved to the defense side within a broad corporate regulatory practice. I established a national reputation representing police officers in criminal proceedings, serious misconduct cases and public inquiries. I acted as outside counsel for all the national police staff associations: the Chief Police Officers’ Staff Association, the Police Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales, and the Police Federation of England and Wales.
As outside counsel for the National Black Police Association and the Metropolitan Black Police Association, I represented officers and staff as plaintiffs in discrimination proceedings, and represented the MBPA in the Morris Inquiry (the Independent Inquiry into Professional Standards and Employment Matters in the Metropolitan Police Service), a landmark investigation whose report found that the Metropolitan Police’s discipline and complaints processes bore disproportionately on Black and minority ethnic officers and called for radical reform of its personnel procedures.
Having moved to California, I spent the next two decades working with both management and labor clients. My practice involved the negotiation and administration of collective bargaining agreements, and representation as an advocate in grievance, PERB and NLRB processes.
