His facilitation, coaching, consulting, and training practice includes work with leaders of public, private and non-profit organizations on effective communications, dialogue, collaborative negotiation, relationship and team building, conflict resolution, leadership development, strategic planning, designing systems, culture and organizational change.

He is an internationally recognized speaker and author of Mediation:  Revenge and the Magic of Forgiveness; Mediating Dangerously: The Frontiers of Conflict Resolution; The Crossroads of Conflict: A Journey into the Heart of Dispute Resolution; Conflict Revolution (1^s and-2^nd Editions); and The Dance of Opposites: Explorations in Mediation, Dialogue and Conflict Resolution Systems Design; Politics, Dialogue and the Evolution of Democracy; Words of Wisdom; and co-author with Joan Goldsmith of Thank God It’s Monday! 14 Values We Need to Humanize the Way We Work; Resolving Personal and Organizational Conflict; The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy; The Art of Waking People Up: Cultivating Awareness and Authenticity at Work; and Resolving Conflicts At Work: Ten Strategies For Everyone On The Job (1^st-3^rd Editions).

His university teaching includes mediation, law, history, political science, conflict studies, urban studies, and other topics at several colleges and universities.  He is or has recently been an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University School of Law; Southern Methodist University; USC, Global Negotiation Insight Institute at Harvard Law School; Omega Institute; Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Cape Cod Institute; University of Amsterdam ADR Institute; Saybrook University; Massey University (New Zealand).  He has done conflict resolution work in Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Denmark, England, Georgia, Greece, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, USSR, and Zimbabwe.  He is founder and first President of Mediators Beyond Borders.

He served as an Administrative Law Judge for the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board and the Public Employment Relations Board, a Factfinder for the Public Employment Relations Board, and a Judge Pro Tem for the Superior Court of Los Angeles.  He has been an Arbitrator and Mediator for over forty years in labor management disputes, and is a member of a number of arbitration panels.

He received his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley; J.D. from U.C. Berkeley’s Boalt Law School; Ph.D. from U.C.L.A.; LLM from U.C.L.A. Law School; and did post-doctoral work at Yale University School of Law.  He is a graduate of the National Judicial College and has taken graduate level courses in a variety of subjects.