ABOUT
I am a lawyer, retired from active practice, with extensive training and experience in the areas of human rights, civil rights and civil liberties. I also have worked with organizations to improve their effectiveness and on alternate dispute resolution practice, methods, education and theory.
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My justice activities started in the 1960's with involvement in the civil rights and the anti-war movements in the United States. I organized with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Boston Draft Resistance Group and Oakland Direct Action Committee/Black Panther Party.
I did my undergraduate work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and attended law school at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (Newark), receiving my Juris Doctor in 1974. I studied the theory and practice of dispute resolution and organizational effectiveness at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard and the Conflict Resolution Program at the Justice Institute, BC.
I began my formal legal career as a clerk for Professor Arthur Kinoy, a prominent U.S. civil rights attorney and a founder of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. I worked with Prof. Kinoy on many civil liberties cases including the "Chicago 7" case and opposition to the Nixon-era "national security" wiretapping. In 1974 I practiced law as an associate of and was mentored by David Scribner, a labour and human rights pioneer. From 1974-1976 I worked in Puerto Rico as a lawyer for the independence/decolonization movement and grass roots unions. I litigated constitutional challenges to repressive and colonial laws. Some of my work in Puerto Rico is described in this Yale Law Journal article.
Returning to New York, I was Counsel and Assistant to the President of the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council (AFL-CIO) for four years. I represented every classification of unionized employees at all major hotels in New York City. In 1980, I became Director of the Rutgers Law School Labor Law Clinic, a program that instructed advanced law students on employment rights and labour law issues through involvement in ongoing cases.
In 1983, Denise Reinhardt and I started a private practice where we directed a six-person law firm doing civil rights, civil liberties, and union representation in the New York and New Jersey areas. In addition to the issues that arise in a labour and human rights practice, we litigated major cases involving academic freedom and the right to access to governmental information, among many others. In 2000, we scaled back our private law practice to devote our energies to public service as Senior Fellows of the Center for Constitutional Rights. We advised on cases, including Guantánamo detainees, torture claims, police abuses and systemic discrimination. From 2004-2012 I served as senior counsel to the firm of Levy Ratner, P.C. in New York City. Denise and I also started the Center for Creative Mediation (the logo used on this website), which applied a plainspoken approach to dispute resolution grounded in part in the teachings of mediator Ken Cloke.
In 2003, I relocated to Powell River, British Columbia, where I was involved with resolution of disputes involving resource conflicts. I served as neutral chairperson of the stakeholder committee at a major paper mill. I was president of the nonprofit society that delivered the area’s employment, literacy, diversity, immigrant, family and social services programs. Among my many other community activities, I was an officer of the community foundation and of nonprofit societies advancing grass-roots projects, promoting sustainable agriculture and supporting live music. In addition to my local community work, I served as a Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) until March 2021 and was Vice President for several years.
I have lived in Victoria, capital of British Columbia, since 2015, where I am an active in the BC Black History Awareness Society, the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers and Kulea Culture Society. I was appointed by the Province as member of the Victoria-Esquimalt Police Board in 2021 and 2022. My reasons for stepping down from the Police Board are detailed here.