A partner in Carter, Fries & Grunschlag, Bob Fries represents small businesses, non-profits, and individuals, and serves as an impartial neutral. Formerly a partner in Steinhart & Falconer, his practice focuses on employment, business, and labor law counseling, negotiation, and mediation. He has been Martindale-Hubbell AV rated for over 35 years.

Legal Experience: Fries’ experience includes contract disputes, wrongful discharge, employment discrimination, harassment, retaliation, FMLA, EPA, ADA, OSHA, FLSA, ADEA, civil rights, class-action, and NLRA cases. Fries 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. He is a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and a Northern California Superlawyer.

Mediation Experience: Fries has served successfully as an impartial mediator in discrimination (race, sex, age), ADA (access and employment), wage/hour, wrongful discharge, police practices (excessive force), real estate (landlord-tenant), business, attorneys’ fees, and class action cases. His mediation training includes over 300 hours of basic and advanced skills 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 federal district court, the Alameda 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,” describing him as “well prepared, fair, reasonable, and persuasive.”

Memberships: The State Bar of California (Labor and Employment 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 (past president); former Adjunct Professor, UC Hastings College of Law, teaching negotiation.

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.

Hourly Rate: $450