MEDIATION AND ARBITRATION TRAINING – FACULTY

Our instructors all are acclaimed practitioners, authors, have served as adjunct professors, and many are past chairs of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution or Past Presidents of the International Academy of Mediators. Most of our training teams are gender balanced and include instructors who have historically trained together.

Tracy L. Allen is a full-time mediator, arbitrator and ADR teacher.  As a business, tax, real estate and estate planning attorney, she specializes in national and international mediation, the strategic management and design of corporate and cultural conflict resolution processes, arbitration and ADR training.  She writes and teaches extensively throughout the world.  She serves on the roster of several dispute resolution organizations, including state and federal courts, CPR, the World Intellectual Property Association, the International Chamber of Commerce, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the American Arbitration, the American Health Lawyer Association and the National Centre for Dispute Resolution.  She served on the Michigan Supreme Court ADR Task Force which designed and implemented guidelines for court ADR plans and training of mediators in Michigan.  She served as co-chair of the Mediation Committee of the ABA Dispute Resolution Section and is a fellow and past president of the International Academy of Mediators.  She is a graduate of the University of Michigan (BA) and Wayne State University Law School (JD, LLM Taxation).

Greg Bourgeois is recognized by attorneys and clients alike for his fair, creative style and tenacious commitment to helping parties reach a resolution even if it means he continues to facilitate conversations between interested parties after the day of mediation, Greg serves as a full-time mediator and arbitrator for civil and family law disputes, with a concentration in employment dispute resolution. He has helped parties resolved thousands of civil disputes. Greg works with parties throughout Texas and the United States in his employment dispute resolution practice. In 2000 he acted on his vision for providing a peaceful, neutral site for the constructive resolution of disputes by co-founding The Lakeside Mediation Center in Austin, Texas. With fifteen years of litigation experience on both sides of the docket for large corporations, small businesses and individuals, Greg brings an acute ability to view conflict and concerns from different perspectives and to work with each party to cultivate innovative solutions. He has successfully mediated disputes involving employment and wrongful termination, discrimination, and sexual harassment; commercial issues, contracts, securities and partnership dissolution; the media; divorce and family matters; intellectual property; professional liability; environmental concerns; real estate and construction; landlord/tenant relationships; personal injury and products liability; consumer (DTPA) issues; products liability; probate; and insurance law. Since 2000 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has turned to Greg as one of its authorized mediators for resolving discrimination charges in Texas.

Ben J. Cunningham is a nationally recognized practicing attorney-mediator who has mediated over 3,000 cases. A founding partner of Lakeside Mediation Center in Austin (Galton, Cunningham & Bourgeois, PLLC), Ben holds the highest credentialing designation awarded by the Texas Mediator Credentialing Association, is a Fellow in the Texas Bar Foundation, Past President and current board member of the Austin/Travis County Dispute Resolution Center, and has served as Adjunct Professor at Texas State University in its graduate level ADR degree program, and serves on the Graduate Advisory Board for Legal and ADR Studies as Texas State University.  A Guest Lecturer in ADR at the University of Texas and other institutions, Ben has also presented at numerous CLE programs, including the Association of Attorney Mediators and the Texas Association of Mediators. Ben is contributing author to the critically acclaimed ABA book, Stories Mediators Tell. Ben holds an AV-Preeminent rating by Martindale Hubble.

Eric Galton is a Past President and Knight of the International Academy of Mediators and a founder of the Lakeside Mediation Center in Austin, Texas. Eric has been a full time mediator since 1985 and has conducted over 7000 mediations in Texas and around the United States. Eric has trained over 2000 mediators and had conducted advanced trainings in 18 states. Galton is an adjunct professor at the Straus Institute at Pepperdine School of Law and served as an adjunct professor teaching mediation at University of Texas School of Law for seven years. Galton has published five books about mediation, including his most recent book for the ABA, Stories Mediators Tell, with Professor Lela Love from Cardozo Law School.  Galton is a Distinguished Credentialed Mediator and also served on the board of the Texas Association of Mediators. Eric has been named a Super Lawyer in Texas for eight consecutive years and is listed in the current edition of Who’s Who in a International Commercial Mediation.

Karen Hobbs is known for her ability to close complex and emotionally charged cases, Ms. Hobbs mediation practice includes complex and simple cases involving construction, property, personal injury, contract, employment as well as complex family and probate cases.  She has mediated over 4,000 disputes including hundreds of multi-party cases and class actions. Ms. Hobbs, Past President of the International Academy of Mediators, has taught numerous graduate level classes in mediation and negotiation and hundreds of negotiation, mediation and mediation advocacy seminars to attorneys and other audiences throughout the United States and China. In addition, Ms. Hobbs has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University’s law school, the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah, and at Masryk University’s law school in Brno, Czech Republic.

David A. Hoffman teaches the Mediation course at Harvard Law School, where he is the John H. Watson Jr. Lecturer on Law.  He is a mediator, arbitrator, attorney, and founding member of Boston Law Collaborative, LLC.  David’s mediation and arbitration cases range from complex litigation matters involving Fortune 500 companies to emotionally challenging family matters.  David is past chair of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution, and Distinguished Fellow in the International Academy of Mediators.  In 2014, David received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College of Civil Trial Mediators.  David has published three books on dispute resolution and is listed in “Best Lawyers in America.”  Prior to founding Boston Law Collaborative, David was a litigation partner at the Boston firm Hill & Barlow, where he practiced for 17 years.  David is a graduate of Princeton University, Cornell University (M.A., American Studies), and Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Marvin E. Johnson is a nationally recognized mediator, arbitrator and trainer with over 25 years of dispute resolution experience. Mr. Johnson has mediated and arbitrated thousands of cases in the field of employment, labor-management, consumer, business and community reconciliation.  He provides diversity and dispute resolution training and lectures extensively on the subject of conflict management. Mr. Johnson serves on numerous national, regional, and local dispute resolution panels. Two Presidents of the United States, a Secretary of the United States Department of State, a Governor of Maryland, the Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, and the County Executive for Prince George’s County Maryland have recognized Mr. Johnson’s dispute resolution expertise by appointing him to various dispute resolution panels and boards.  Mr. Johnson is President Elect of the International Academy of Mediators and a former officer and current member of the American Bar Association’s Section of Dispute Resolution.

Kimberlee K. Kovach has been a leader and visionary in the modern mediation and alternative dispute resolution movement for over thirty-five years.   She is a leading teacher, trainer, scholar and practitioner in the field of mediation and other dispute resolution processes.  Kovach was a founding officer and served as Chair of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution. She also served as Chair of the ADR Sections of both the Texas and Houston Bar Associations, and has received several awards for her contributions to dispute resolution. Professor Kovach created and conducted the first mediation training in the state of Texas, and has continued to teach and train mediators around the globe.  She has taught numerous ADR courses in legal education for over twenty-five years, and was a leader in establishing mediation clinics. Kovach has published numerous books, articles and book chapters on a variety of ADR related topics, several of which are cited by scholars, courts and practitioners.

Jeffrey Krivis began his mediation practice in 1989, when lawyer-mediators in Southern California were rare, and litigators had to look outside the state for experienced practitioners. Now, more than 20 years later and having resolved thousands of disputes — including class action, mass tort, employment, entertainment, business, complex insurance, product liability, and malpractice matters — Krivis is recognized not only as a pioneer in the field, but also as one of the most respected neutrals in the state. An adjunct professor at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law since 1994, Krivis teaches negotiation and mediation skills to lawyers and judges. His experiences as a working mediator and academic prompted him to write the award winning book Improvisational Negotiation: A Mediator’s Stories of Conflict About Love, Money and Anger – and the Strategies that Resolved Them (Wiley/Jossey-Bass 2006), as well as How To Make Money as a Mediator (And Create Value for Everyone): 30 Top Mediators Share Secrets to Building a Successful Practice”(Jossey-Bass 2006). He is also a contributing author to the ABA book “Stories Mediators Tell.”

Krivis is a past president of both the International Academy of Mediators and the Southern California Mediation Association. He has served as a Council member of the section on Dispute Resolution for the ABA. The Los Angeles Daily Journal legal newspaper has named him as one of the “Top Neutrals in the State” numerous times, and he continues to be recognized since its inception on the “Super Lawyer” list published by Los Angeles magazine and Law & Politics Media. He was featured in the 2010 and 2014 editions of “Best Lawyers in America” as both the Lawyer of the Year in Southern California and Los Angeles for Alternative Dispute Resolution and Mediation. Krivis is (AV) rated from Martindale-Hubbell.