I took employment with Bradley in 1975, and I have been here ever since.
As you can see, if you visit the various sub-sites that surround this biography on the Bradley website, I have principally engaged in complex construction or procurement matters since that time. I started with the defense of Westinghouse in the uranium litigation arising from reactors built by Alabama Power Company and Tennessee Valley Authority. During that work, this firm developed strategies and techniques for managing complex litigation, which we have refined ever since, including categorizing and computerizing various documents or ideas involved in complex litigation. In the late 70's, we designed programs for use on clients' in-house computers, and since that time, we have assisted vendors of litigation support services in designing products that fit the needs of our particular claim or litigation situation and strategy. Of course, these days, we are focused on how electronically stored information is to be handled both as a course of business and as a matter of discovery in litigation.
I don't want to be famous; I just want to be good at what I do. My philosophy as a lawyer is to do the job well, as economically as is feasible under the circumstances, and with honor and pride. I am still a carpenter, in philosophy, if not in profession. I believe clients who are business people are the best people to solve the problems about which I am consulted. Hence, I do not push litigation, whether it is “gentle,” "scorched earth," “a rifle shot,” or "ambush," or some other variety, unless that is the only available strategy. Even when that is the case, I always look for "plateaus" where the clients can talk, as business people, either directly or through lawyers, to reach a satisfactory business resolution of the conflict.
I have been involved in a great deal of complex litigation all over the country (and, when it suits me to travel that far, overseas), notwithstanding my philosophy. In addition, I have had the pleasure of assisting in negotiations of large construction projects at the front-end, representing owners, lenders, designers, and contractors (not all at the same time, of course). I have been involved with all of the delivery systems, including the "new" design-build system. I routinely work on projects involving collaborative design and delivery models.
I have experience based upon thousands of arbitration demands and have tried scores of arbitrations to a result, in virtually every one of the contiguous states. I frequently serve as an arbitrator, less frequently as a mediator. I have tried jury trials to a result in Alabama (of course), Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas, Illinois, and Florida. I have mediated (as a party representative) dozens of disputes before mediators in Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, Texas, District of Columbia, Virginia, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Missouri, New York, Louisiana, Maryland, West Virginia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Puerto Rico, and Alabama, as well as Ontario, London, and Panama. And I still manage to get some matters settled in the way it was done before the “invention” of mediators: by calling the other side and talking about settlement.
