From zealous advocate to professional neutral

Labor relations in California

From 2012 to 2020 I was Associate Vice Chancellor for Labor and Employee Relations at the California State University, a system of 23 campuses, 450,000+ students and 65,000+ represented staff and faculty. I was chief negotiator in all systemwide bargaining, covering 13 bargaining units; senior labor advisor to the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees; and a member of the Chancellor’s senior management team. I oversaw the grievance process and all unfair practice charges before PERB, supervised arbitrations and mediations statewide, and represented the University in legislative hearings. For several years I also headed the systemwide Equal Employment Opportunity and Whistleblower Protection unit, which administered the University’s Title IX and discrimination, harassment and retaliation executive orders, and every investigation and appeal handled at the Chancellor’s Office went out under my signature.

Before joining the CSU as an employee, I advised it for seven years as senior consultant with C. Richard Barnes and Associates, founded by the 14th Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. With Richard Barnes I provided labor relations advice, training and representation across the United States and Canada to a wide range of labor- and management-side clients.

Advocacy in England and Wales

I practiced as a barrister and solicitor advocate with a national profile in police law. As a partner in a national law firm, I was standing outside counsel to the Police Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales, the National Black Police Association and the Metropolitan Black Police Association, which I represented in the Morris Inquiry, the public inquiry chaired by Sir William Morris into professional standards and employment matters in the Metropolitan Police Service. I represented officers facing misconduct and criminal investigations, and officers and civilian staff who had suffered discrimination and retaliation within the service. Many of those cases had a national media profile, and I was a regular contributor to national print and broadcast media on policing issues.

Teaching and professional life

I teach arbitration, negotiation and online dispute resolution in the nationally ranked M.A. program in Negotiation, Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding at CSU Dominguez Hills, and sit on the program’s Board of Advisors. I am a past member of the Board of Advisors of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at the City University of New York. I present regularly at national and international conferences, most recently on the use of artificial intelligence in dispute resolution.

Qualifications

• Attorney, State Bar of California (No. 264555)
• Barrister, called to the Bar by the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, London
• Solicitor Advocate (Higher Courts), England and Wales
• Fellow, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb)
• LL.M., Dispute Resolution — Pepperdine University, Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution
• LL.M., International Business Law — University of Manchester (Lawson Prize)
• LL.B. (Hons) — University of Sheffield

Panel biography

A third-person biography in the format used by FMCS and CSMCS is available to download, for parties and administrators who need it for selection files.