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Employment Mediation Institute 2024 Speakers

Eleanor Barr, Esq.

Eleanor Barr began mediating 25 years ago because she saw the tremendous benefit of resolving litigated disputes through dialogue and negotiation.  In the subsequent years, she has successfully settled thousands of disputes. 

Eleanor began her legal career 35 years ago as a litigator of complex cases and left her litigation practice in 1999 to mediate full-time.  Today, Eleanor mediates in the areas of employment, environmental, business, personal injury, real estate, insurance coverage, civil rights, tribal disputes, and organizational and educational disputes.  She mediates at all stages of conflict, including pre-litigated matters.

Whether the dispute involves complex facts or law, public policy issues or interpersonal dynamics, Eleanor is dedicated to helping the participants reach resolution. She is especially skilled at handling complex, multi-party matters—and any matters that include tough negotiations and difficult personalities. She brings exceptional people skills to even the most bitterly contested disputes and is known for her sense of fairness and tenacious commitment to reaching settlement.

Eleanor has been named a Top 50 Neutral in California by the Daily Journal and a Thought Leader Global Elite by Who’s Who Legal. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators, a frequent lecturer on mediation and negotiation, and has taught mediation as an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine School of Law.

Phyllis Cheng, Esq. 

Phyllis Cheng is a neutral at ADR Services, where she mediates employment, civil rights, and other matters. She also serves on the mediation panels of the California Court of Appeal (Second and Sixth Appellate Districts), and the U.S. District Court,Central District of California, where she led its mediation practice group for four years.

Ms. Cheng served in the administrations of four California Governors.  She was Director of the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH, now renamed the CivilRights Department), where she oversaw hundreds of historic settlements and judgments. She was in private practice on both the plaintiff and defense sides, Partner at DLA Piper, Deputy Attorney General in civil rights enforcement at CalDOJ, and Vice Chair of the Fair Employment and Housing Commission. For more than 20 years, Ms.Cheng has been a regular columnist on cases pending before the California Supreme Court for the California Labor & Employment Law Review, where she was also Managing Editor, and is responsible for a daily employment case law alert. She is an author of the Rutter Group’s California Fair Housing and Public Accommodations book,and was a contributing editor on various chapters of its Employment Litigation practice guide. She is a Fellow of The College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and was theState Bar’s 2012 Ronald M. George Public Lawyer of the Year.

Andrew H. Friedman, Esq.

Andrew H. Friedman, a name partner with the law firm of Helmer · Friedman LLP, primarily represents employees in all aspects of employment law including not only individual discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and accommodation cases but also complex multi-party representative and class actions. Mr. Friedman received his J.D. degree from Cornell Law School and his B.A. degree in history and psychology, cum laude, from Vanderbilt University. At Cornell, Mr. Friedman was a member of the Board of Editors of the Cornell Law Review and a member of the Moot Court Board. Following law school, Mr. Friedman served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable John T. Nixon, United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Subsequently, Mr. Friedman was trained as an employment attorney by two of the Nation’s most prestigious management-side employment law firms – Paul Hastings LLP and Bryan Cave LLP.

Mr. Friedman has handled a wide range of employment-related litigation in state and federal courts. Indeed, Mr. Friedman won (with Tony Lewis of The Lewis Law Firm) a $4.1 Million jury verdict in a fraud and breach of employment contract lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court and he also prevailed (along with his law partner, Gregory D. Helmer) in a three-week sexual harassment jury trial in the Orange County Superior Court. He also settled a $2.4 Million wage and hour class action lawsuit in federal court (U.S. District Court for the Central District of California), a $1.575 Million class action discrimination lawsuit in the Orange County Superior Court, and he recovered a $1.5 Million settlement in federal court (U.S. District Court for the Central District of California) in a wage and hour class action.

Mr. Friedman served as Counsel of Record in Lightfoot v. Cendant Mortgage Corp. et. al. (Case No. 10- 56068) where he successfully convinced the U. S. Supreme Court to grant the petition for certiorari that he filed on behalf of his clients. In January 2017, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision authored by Justice Sotomayor, reversed the Ninth Circuit and ruled in favor of Mr. Friedman’s clients.

Mr. Friedman has received the highest possible Martindale-Hubble rating ("AV"), indicating that he is ranked at the highest level of professional excellence with "very high to preeminent legal ability" and "very high" ethical standards as established by confidential opinions from members of the Bar. Law & Politics Magazine and the publishers of Los Angeles Magazine selected Mr. Friedman as a 2006 – 2023 Southern California "Super Lawyer" in the category of Labor and Employment Law.

In 2020-2024, out of more than 70,000 attorneys in the Los Angeles area, Super Lawyers named Andrew H. Friedman to its list of the Top 100 Super Lawyers in Southern California. The online legal referral service AVVO (www.avvo.com) rates Mr. Friedman 10/10 (superb) as an employment/labor and class action attorney. In 2019-2023, LAWDRAGON selected Mr. Friedman as one of the Nation’s leading plaintiff employment attorneys and, during that same time, Best Lawyers Magazine selected Andrew H. Friedman as one of the “Best Lawyers” in the category of Labor and Employment Law.

Chambers USA, the Nation’s leading legal data and analytics provider, has awarded Mr. Friedman with its highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment. According to a review published in Chambers USA, “Andrew Friedman of Helmer Friedman is recognized among peers for his work representing both individuals and classes in a variety of matters, ranging from harassment to wage and hour suits. ‘He's an excellent plaintiff lawyer who offers a really good perspective.’”

Mr. Friedman is the author of a two-volume, approximately 1500-page, employment discrimination law treatise entitled Litigating Employment Discrimination Cases (James Pub. 2005-2024). 

Click here to view Andrew H. Friedman's Full Bio. 

Stacie Feldman Hausner, Esq.

Stacie Feldman Hausner, Esq. has mediated full time since 2015. She has successfully mediated more than 1,500 cases in the areas of personal injury, civil rights, employment, business, real estate, insurance coverage, construction defect, malpractice, entertainment, and intellectual property law. She has an exceptionally high settlement rate due to her tenacity, calm and friendly demeanor, creative “out of the box” thinking, and keen insight. Ms. Hausner draws on her broad mediation experience, as well as her extensive study and understanding of the fields of negotiation and mediation. After an extensive career as a litigator, practicing law at both defense and plaintiff firms, Ms. Hausner launched her mediation practice because she understood the perspectives and interests of the opposing sides to a dispute, as well as the benefits of alternative dispute resolution. She received an LL.M. in Dispute Resolution from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law, and prior to joining ADR Services, Inc., she successfully mediated more than one hundred settlement conferences for the Los Angeles Superior Court. In addition, she has spent considerable time mediating for the Central District of the United States District Court, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs, and the Center for Conflict Resolution.

Mark Lemke, Esq., LL.M.

Mark Lemke, Esq., LL.M. is a highly-experienced commercial mediator who’s conducted nearly 3,000 mediations.  He brings a unique combination of experience, having served as plaintiffs' counsel, defense counsel, and insurance coverage counsel.  He specializes in employment, housing, personal injury, & wrongful death cases.  In addition, he serves on the Adjunct Faculty for the Straus Institute and USC Law School’s Employment Mediation Clinic.  Mark holds an LL.M. from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, J.D. from USC Law School, and B.A. from UC Berkeley.  He serves on panels for the EEOC, CRD (formerly DFEH), Central District Court, Courts of Appeal, and others.  He also serves as a Temporary Judge and Judicial Settlement Officer.  Mark is a frequent speaker on mediation topics.  He previously served as President of SCMA, and Co-President of the LGBTQ+ Lawyers Association of Los Angeles.  He was recently inducted into the prestigious International Academy of Mediators (IAM), an invitation-only cadre of the world’s best mediators.

Anthony J. Oncidi, Esq.

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily Journal, The Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is "brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up." Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as "outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a "phenomenal strategist" and "one of the top employment litigators in the country."

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law Journal, Bloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management ("SHRM"), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.

Mike Young, Esq.

Mike Young has been mediating since 1989, and has been thinking about mediation just about every day since, much to his wife’s annoyance.  (But such is life; she thinks about pilates every day, and somehow even coerces Mike to do it, so he figures they are even.)  Before Lisa Klerman transformed the mediation program at Mike’s alma mater, the USC Gould School of Law, into a powerhouse, Mike was able to finagle his way into teaching negotiation and mediation there for almost a decade, later trying his hand at Pepperdine Law’s Straus Institute.  His students loved the 7:30 am start time, or so he chose to believe.  Mike finally left his firm of Alston & Bird in 2011 (after his court briefs started to read like this bio), allowing him to concentrate full time on mediation, and was fortunate enough to slip into Judicate West unnoticed where he plans on staying until they pry him out with a crowbar.  A long time Distinguished Fellow and former President of the International Academy of Mediators, Mike has presented at national and international conferences, including most recently at the IAM’s Seattle conference.  Despite all these years, or perhaps because of them, Mike is still humbled by the mediation process, which leads him to think even more about what mediation is and what it can be, to question what he is doing and why, and to always strive to maintain the joy for himself and his parties.