CDRC Presidents 1994-2007
2007 President - Don Fobian
Work Phone: 619-208-1828
e-mail: dfobian@msn.com
DON FOBIAN is a full time neutral, specializing in mediation and facilitation. He is also an arbitrator for cases filed with the Contractors State License Board and the NASD. Don is an adjunct professor at Chapman University College in San Diego and San Diego State University. Besides being on CDRC’s Board for the past seven years, Don is a Board Member for ADR-San Diego.
2006 President - John Blackman
Phone: 650-554-6200
E-mail: jsb@farbstein.com
JOHN BLACKMAN is a civil trial attorney with Farbstein & Blackman in San Mateo, who also acts frequently as a mediator, arbitrator, neutral evaluator and private judge pro tem. John has written and lectured extensively on the subject of Alternative Dispute Resolution, particularly in connection with the practice of law and issues involving attorney ethics. He was President of the San Mateo County Bar Association in 2003, and chaired that association's ADR Section from 1992 to 2002. He is also one of the founding members of the San Mateo County Multi-Option ADR Project ("M.A.P."), a unique partnership of trial lawyers, the courts, and community mediation providers. John served on the Judicial Council committee that recently drafted Rules of Court governing standards of conduct for mediators in court-connected mediation programs.
2005 President - Richard Bayer
Phone: 858-454-3350
E-mail: rbayer@lajollacenter.com
DICK BAYER graduated from Middlebury College in 1973 and completed the University of Colorado Law School in 1976. He has practiced law in Colorado and California. In addition to complex securities and construction litigation, Dick has substantial environmental experience, including issues dealing with groundwater contamination, underground storage tanks, hazardous and solid waste, landfills, redevelopment, zoning, land use and negotiations with a myriad of federal and state agencies. Dick has taught environmental law since 1994 in the Graduate Careers Program at the University of San Diego. In addition to his law practice, Dick has owned and operated a small independent oil company in downtown Los Angeles, developed distributive power generation in California, developed private schools in the Western United States, redeveloped contaminated Brownfields property throughout the country and currently owns and operates the La Jolla Center for Dispute Resolution in La Jolla, California.
2004 President - Thomas Reese
Phone: 650-323-2450
Email: thosreese@aol.com
THOMAS D. REESE is a former litigator with over 30 years experience representing both plaintiffs and defendants in personal injury, premises and products liability, professional malpractice, Estates and Trusts, construction, real estate and insurance coverage disputes. Since 1994, Tom has been a full time professional neutral mediating and arbitrating these, and other, types of cases. He is on the panels of the San Mateo and Santa Clara Superior Courts, the First District of Appeal, and the Federal District Courts. He is on the Kaiser Panel of Neutrals, is a mediator for the US Postal Service, and on the NASD panel of arbitrators and mediators.
Tom is a past President of CDRC, a Fellow in the College of Commercial Arbitrators, a diplomat member of the Academy of California Neutrals, and recently completed a term as an appointed member to the California Bar’s standing committee on ADR. He is a member of the Association of Business Trial Attorneys and is a member of the State Bar Business Section’s Committee on Business ADR.
Tom attended Occidental College, received a MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and his law degree from Stanford Law School. He was formerly an officer in the US Coast Guard Reserve. Tom has trained extensively in all of the court programs, the Post Office program, the NASD program, and the AAA. Presently, he coaches in several programs.
2003 President - Michelle Katz
Phone: 310-277-2236
E-mail: KatzMedi8s@aol.com
MICHELLE KATZ is certified as a specialist in family law by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization and devotes her practice exclusively to mediation, mediation-related services, and collaborative law in family law cases. Her office is in Los Angeles, California. She is the former chair of the State Bar Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution, a former member of the Board of Governors of the Beverly Hills Bar Foundation and the Board of Governors of the Beverly Hill Bar Association. Michelle also served as a member of the ADR Consulting Group to the Board of Legal Specialization of the California State Bar. Currently, she is chair of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Family Committee and is on the planning committee for that section’s annual conference in April, 2007 in Washington D.C. Listed in Martindale Hubbell’s Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, she currently carries their AV rating. She is one of the founders of the Los Angeles Collaborative Family Law Association. Michelle has been named as a 2006 Southern California Super Lawyer by Law & Politics and Los Angeles Magazine. She has trained with Gary Friedman, Esq. at the Center for Mediation in Law in Mill Valley, California, and with Roger Fisher and Robert Mnookin at Harvard, and has received training from Chip Rose and Susan Gamache/Nancy Cameron in Collaborative Law (through the Los Angeles Collaborative Family Law Association). She is a frequent speaker on the use of alternative dispute resolution processes in family law. She can be reached at KatzMedi8s@aol.com.
2002 President - Ruth Glick
Phone: 650-344-2144
E-mail: rvg@ruthvglick.com
RUTH GLICK is a full time arbitrator and mediator whose knowledge and commitment to ADR derives from her work as both a practitioner and educator. She has had over 20 years experience as a dispute resolver in both her legal and business careers and was Adjunct Professor of Arbitration and ADR Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law for ten years. She serves as a full time neutral for business, real estate, and employment disputes. She is on the American Arbitration Association commercial panel of arbitrators and mediators as well as on a number of court, industry and government ADR panels. An author and lecturer on ADR topics, she is President of The Mediation Society of San Francisco, Director and Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, Vice-Chair of the California State Bar Business Law ADR committee, and was a past President of California Dispute Resolution Council. For more information see www.ruthvglick.com
2001 President - James Madison
Phone: 650-614-0160
E-mail: JRMcoach@aol.com
James R. Madison is a lawyer with offices in Menlo Park who functions full time as a dispute resolution neutral - an arbitrator, mediator, special master, partnering facilitator and dispute review board member. Formerly a partner in the San Francisco office of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, Jim is a member of the Large Complex Case Panel, the Employment Panel, the Panel of International Arbitrators and the Mediator Panel of the American Arbitration Association. He specializes in the mediation and arbitration of construction, employment and other business disputes. Jim served on the Blue Ribbon Committee of Experts in Arbitration Ethics which advised the Judicial Council on the Ethics Standards for Neutral Arbitrators in Contract Arbitrations. He currently is vice-chair of the California State Bar ADR Committee. Jim is an adjunct professor of law at the University of San Francisco Law School, where he has taught dispute resolution and arbitration, and an instructor in trial advocacy at Stanford University Law School as well as at USF.
2000 President -John Seitman
Phone: 619-236-1848 or 858-793-4555
E-mail: jseitmanpacbell.net
JOHN M. SEITMAN has been a full-time neutral since 1997, prior to which time he was a principal in the San Diego, CA law firm Lindley, Lazar & Scales, A Professional Corporation, which he joined in 1966. He is affiliated with JAMS and based in San Diego. Mr. Seitman served on the CDRC Board of Directors from 1999-2001 and was its President in 2000. He is also a Past President of The State Bar of California (1991-1992), the San Diego County Bar Association (1986), and the San Diego County Bar Foundation (1988-1989). He is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the College of Commercial Arbitrators, and served as a contributor to the CCA’s Guide to Best Practices in Commercial Arbitration. Mr. Seitman has arbitrated and mediated hundreds of cases throughout Southern California, specializing in large, commercial cases and employment matters. He has lectured and written widely on dispute resolution issues.
1999 President - Elizabeth O'Brien
1998 President - Norman Brand
Phone: (415) 982-7172
Email: adrmaster@abanet.org
NORMAN BRAND has been a full-time mediator and arbitrator of labor, employment, discrimination, business and pension matters for the last twenty-five years. His practice includes mediation and arbitration of claims alleging sexual harassment, statutory employment claims, wrongful termination, and arbitration of executive compensation agreements, business disputes, intellectual property disputes and labor-management disputes, including interest arbitration in Police and Fire Fighter impasses. Mr. Brand was elected a 2006, 2007 Northern California “Super Lawyer” in Alternative Dispute Resolution. He is author of Labor Arbitration: The Strategy of Persuasion, Second Edition (San Francisco: 2006). He is Editor of How ADR Works (Washington, BNA:2002) and Editor-in-Chief of Discipline and Discharge in Arbitration (Washington, BNA: 1998). He is a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel, a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, a Fellow of the American College of Civil Trial Mediators; past-President of the California Dispute Resolution Council, and a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators.
1997 President - Dennis Sharp
Phone: (619)204-6504
Email: SharpResolutions@yahoo.com
DENNIS SHARP is a full time mediator, facilitator and ADR expert for Sharp Resolutions, headquartered in San Diego, California. He has mediated over 1200 cases since 1985 and is mediator for the World Bank and member of several panels including the San Diego Superior Court, the Department of Interior and other government agencies. Mr. Sharp has served in a variety of other ADR professional and leadership positions, including: Senior Fellow, U.S. Consensus Council (2006 – 2007); co-chair of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution’s Advocacy Committee and former Day Chair of their Arbitration Institute); Board of Directors and Legislation Committee Chair, Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution/Association for Conflict Resolution (1999 – 2002); and, Regional Vice President, American Arbitration Association (1985 – 2000). Mr. Sharp also teaches mediation, negotiation and other ADR courses part time as an adjunct professor at California Western School of Law (currently and from 1988 to 2004). From 2005 – 2007, Mr. Sharp taught ADR courses at American University Washington College of Law while completing an LL.M in Law and Government; he also coached mediation advocacy competition teams there to an international championship in 2007 (International Chamber of Commerce) and to 2nd and 3rd place finishes nationally in 2006 and 2007 (ABA Section of Dispute Resolution).
1996 President - Kenneth Bryant
1995 President - Lauren Burton
1994 President - Robert Barrett
