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VERDICTS & SETTLEMENTS
FRIDAY, MARCH
www.dailyjournal.com
24,2006
Being 'Caught in the Middle'Inspires a Career
By Anna Oberthur
Daily Journal Staff Writer
\
/eteran mediator Susan W. Haldeman
V
knows a lot about seeing both sides ol
the story. She's been doing it her whole life.
Haldeman's father is H.R. Haldeman,
President Nixon's chief of staff.
As a young adult during the Vietnam War
and the Watergate scandal, Susan Haldeman
was uniquely wedged between her peers
fellow Stanford University
students
protesting the war and worrying about the
draft
and her father's role at the Nixon
-
White House.
"I found myself really feeling caught in
the middle," said Haldeman, a principal at
Gregorio, Haldeman, Ptazza, Rotman &
Frank in San Francisco.
Haldeman thinks her experiences then,
and later as her father was indicted,
convicted and eventually sent to Lompoc
Federal Prison for 18 months, have
contributed greatly to where she is today.
XIANG XING ZHOU| Daily Joumal
"My problem [as a litigator] was, whenever I would be making my own argument, my brain
would always be going. 'Yeah but, yeah but, yeah but.' [As a mediator], I get to always be
expressing the 'yeah, buts,' instead of just keeping them in my head," Veteran mediator
Susan W. Haldeman said of her career change.
Watergate was the political backdrop as
her personality, or the dramatic events of
first year of law
her life that may have shaped it. But because
she is someone whom people have always
she prepared to enter her
school, and her membership
in
the
Before turning to mediation, Haldeman
practiced general civil litigation for five
incoming Boalt Ha1l class was noted by
Herb Caen in his San Francisco Chronicle
come to when they wanted to talk, her
years at two Orange County law firms: Virtue
& Scheck and Paone, Genovese, Haldeman,
chosen career is a perfect fit.
McHolm & Gute, where she was a name
column.
seeing, hearing and
understanding both sides and being in the
middle, essentially it's kind of the theme of
my life," she said.
partner.
Haldeman, 54, has been settling disputes
San Francisco since 1986 and doing
mediation for two decades
a long time
in the relatively new field.
She's a founding member of Gregorio
Haldeman, which handles all forms of civil
litigation except family law. The bulk of
Haldeman's work is in the employment and
intellectual property arenas. She also does
commercial and real estate cases.
Grand Canyon spawned an epiphany: She
realized she didn't love her work.
"I found out later that among
the
professors there was kind of a thing about
who was going to be the first to call on
Haldeman in class," she recalled. "And I'm
just sitting there being me."
Looking back now,
Haldeman
acknowledged it was a difficult time.
"You're there, you do it," Haldeman said.
"Then you look back and say, 'I guess that
was hard."'
Of course, how her father's role in
Watergate affected her life is a story "in and
of itself," Haldeman pointed out.
"But it does interconnect with me
"In terms of
in
and
Although Haldeman started her law
who I am as far as working in the mediation
education at Boalt Hall, she left a few weeks
into her second year to work with her father's
lawyers during his trial. In 1971, she
graduated from UCLA Law School.
field, and with the way I am in
mediations," she said. "I'm a listener."
Haldeman's not sure what came first
my
-
At the age of 33, she was on track for
a
lifelong career as an attorney until a
Colorado River rafting trip through the
"I
said, there's got to be something
different for me to be doing that has more
meaning for me in my life," Haldeman said.
"I don't know what that is, but I need to
find it."
She sold her house and her BMW, bought
a motor home, took her dog, a yellow Lab
named Emma, and hit the road for a year
and a half, traveling around the western
United States in search of "something
a
place, a thing
that would provide the
- looking for," she said.
fulfillment I was
While spending some time in Santa
Being 'Caught in the Middle' Inspires a Career for Haldeman
people had paid more than others for
Barbara, she stumbled across a newspapel'
article about a man who was doing
Susan W. Haldeman
mediation, at the time a fledging practice.
Intrigued, she met with him. A week later,
she was in Los Angeles, learning the craft
for herself.
Mediator
She first worked with American
Intermediation Service, the only
organization focusing on lawyers as fulltime mediators. After Judicate Inc. bought
AIS, Anthony Piazza, Arlen Gregorio and
Haldeman left to start their own firm.
The switch to mediation was the right
choice, and Haldeman knew it immediately.
"I loved it," she said. "I absolutely loved
it."
Attorneys who have used Haldeman's
Affiliation: lndependent
Location: San Francisco
Areas of specialty:
Employment law, intellectual
property and commercial and
realestate.
Rater $8,000-$10,500 a day,
including travel expenses
stars in the popular children's TV show on
PBS.
Haldeman also mediated 14 of the cases
Riechert, a partner at Morgan, Lewis &
that came out of the University of
Bockius in Palo Alto, said that, in her
California, Irvine, fertility scandal.
experience, Haldeman diligently followed up
on the case, seeing it through to a settlement
after one wasn't reached the first day.
In 1995 and 1996, patients brought more
than 100 complaints against the regents of
"To me, that's a real attribute of a good
alleged that doctors at the university's
medical clinics transferred eggs between
them without the knowledge of donors or
Haldeman charges $8,000 to $10,500 per
day, a fee that includes administration,
preparation, travel time and expense, a full
day of mediation, and any reasonable
follow-up.
One quality that sets Haldeman apalt
from her peers is her willingness to work
toward getting more from settlements than
just money, according to Kathryn B.
Dickson of Dickson-Ross in Oakland.
"She has aidcd some settlements that
resulted in change way beyond money,"
said Dickson, who handles employment
the University of California. The plaintiffs
recipients.
The mediations brou-sht up a host of
compelling issues, she said.
"It was absolutely fascinating from a legal
perspective," Haldeman said. "You were
dealing with uncharted territory. Is an egg
property or not?"
Other legal questions that came up were
whether the removal of the eggs amounted
to theft and whether the eggs should be
and if so, how
assigned monetary value
much?
"And yet everybody feels their case is
unique," Haldeman said.
The University of Califbrnia eventually
paid out about $20 million to settle the
Age:54
services said she has a calm, professional
manner and a very good track record lbr
resolving cases.
Employment defense attomey Melinda S.
mediator," Riechert said. "She, and others
in her caliber, are very well-paid, they are
top-cost. But you get great service for that.
Others are cheaper, but you don't get as
good a follow-up."
services at the clinic.
-
But even more interesting for Haldeman
more than 100 cases, although there were
other additional lawsuits. Haldeman said
her settlements were all six tigures.
Haldeman describes her mediation style
if I had to put a label on
as "pragmatic
-
it."
She likes to work with parties to tly to
get them to come to their own point of
resolution, but is realistic and will intervene
when necessary.
Sometimes that requires dealing with
other issues
often emotional ones
before turning to the mediation.
In the case of the two brothers fighting
over their name, Haldeman realized the
litigation would never be resolved unless
the brothers dealt with some of the personal
issues that were behind the fights.
"I'm not out there to heal relationships,
and my goal in mediation is to get the
litigation resolved," Haldeman said. "But
when the two are inextricably connected, I
think that's parr of my approach: dealing
with things on a real, live, human sort of
basis."
As a litigator, Haldeman was very good
at seeing
maybe too good, she said
-the other side of the argument."My problem was, whenever I would be
making my own argument, my brain would
always be going, 'Yeah but, yeah but, yeah
but."'she
said.
As a mediator. she gets to play that out.
"l get to always be expressing the 'yeah,
buts,' instead of just keeping them in my
head," Haldeman said.
was the human side of the work. The
families. who had come to the clinic fbr
help conceiving, were all completely
different. Among them wet'e a former
football player who had been paralyzed,
McCutchen, East Palo
an example, she said.
Haldeman said, and an Israeli rabbi and his
Palefsky, McGuinn, Hillsman & Palefsky,
"She will be patient with that kind of stuff
when others won't," Dickson said.
In her mediation career, Haldeman has
from a pair of
handled all kinds of cases
estranged brothers dueling over the use of
wife.
San Francisco; Benjamin Schonbrun,
"It
Venice: Kathryn B. Dickson, Dickson &
cases on the
plaintiffs'
side.
Improved workplaces and facilities are
the family name on the Internet to a
trademark action regarding costumes
depicting Barney, the purple dinosaur who
was incredible to hear these people
talk about it," Haldeman said. "I remember
so clearly one woman who sat there and
had all of us in the room in tears."
A major challenge was determining the
amount of compensation that should be
given to each party, especially since some
Reprinted with pennissiorr fiom the Daily Journal. 02006 Daily Journal Corporation.
Here are some of tlrc otlontels wlrc lutve
used Haldentcut's services :
Wendy M. Lazerson, Bingham
Alto; Cliff M.
Ross, Oakland; Melinda S. Riechert,
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Palo Alto;
Michael J, Bononi, the Bononi Law Group,
Los Angeles; Linda S. Husar, Thelen, Reid
& Priest, Los Angeles; and Wayne S. Flick,
Latham & Watkrns, Los Angeles.
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