Robert T. Fries, Adjunct Faculty

A partner in Carter, Carter, Fries & Grunschlag, Bob Fries represents small businesses, non-profits, and individuals, teaches negotiation, and serves as an impartial neutral. His practice focuses on employment, business, and labor law counseling, negotiation, and mediation.

Legal Experience:

Bob’s experience includes contract disputes, fraud and unfair business practices, trade secrets, real estate, personal injury, police practices, wrongful discharge, employment discrimination, FMLA, EPA, sex harassment, ADA, OSHA, FLSA, ADEA, civil rights, class-action, NLRA, and RLA cases. Bob has tried cases to verdict in San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, and Contra Costa Counties, and in the Northern and Eastern districts of the Federal Courts. Bob is a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.

Mediation Experience:

Bob has served successfully as an impartial mediator in discrimination (race, sex, age), ADA (access and employment), wage/hour, wrongful discharge, trade secret, police practices (excessive force), elder abuse, real estate (development, construction, landlord-tenant), trusts and estates, probate, business, attorneys’ fees, and class action cases. His mediation training includes over 260 hours of basic and advanced skills in facilitative, evaluative, and cross-cultural techniques from the John Paul Jones Group, The Center for Mediation in Law, Stanford Law School, and the Strauss Institute at Pepperdine Law School. He is a mediator for the First District Court of Appeal, the federal district court, the San Francisco and Contra Costa Superior Courts, and private parties. Participants have praised his “insight and grasp of the psychological aspects” of disputes and his ability to “assist all parties in seeing things in a clear and realistic light,” and have described him as “well prepared, fair, reasonable, and persuasive.”

Memberships:

• The State Bar of California (Labor and Employment, Litigation, and ADR sections).
• The American Bar Association (ADR, Individual Rights and Responsibilities, and Labor and Employment sections).
• The Bar Association of San Francisco (Labor and Employment and Mediation sections).
• The Mediation Society (board member and vice-president).

Education:

B.A., J.D. Stanford University (Phi Beta Kappa, Order of the Coif). Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. Law clerk, Hon. Robert F. Peckham, U.S. District Court, N.D. California.