About the Authors
Leonard D. DuBoff is an internationally recognized expert who has lectured on legal issues throughout the world. He began his legal career in New York, then relocated to Palo Alto, California, where he started teaching at the Stanford Law School. Subsequently, he moved to Portland, Oregon, where he taught law at Lewis & Clark Law School. DuBoff spent almost a quarter of a century teaching business law, including employment and intellectual property law.
While a full-time law professor, DuBoff was also Of Counsel to law firms and maintained that relationship until 1994 when he left full-time teaching to found his own law firm that specializes in business, employment, and intellectual property law. DuBoff has received academic awards from President Lyndon Johnson and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and, in 1990, he received the Governor’s Arts Award from Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt.
In addition to practicing law, DuBoff has also been involved in its creation. In the late 1980s, he testified in support of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 and assisted in drafting that law at the request of Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. He has also provided Congress with testimony related to several cultural and intellectual property treaties and has worked with state legislatures on their legislation as well.
A prolific author, DuBoff has written numerous articles for scholarly journals, practical articles for lawyers’ bar publications, and articles for nonlawyers as well. He has regular columns in several publications. He is coauthor of the law school text Cases and Materials on Art Law. He has also written more than 30 other books including: in Plain English)® for Writers, The Law (in Plain English)® for Publishers, The Law (in Plain English)® for Photographers, ® for Nonprofit Organizations, The Law (in Plain English)® for Collectors, The Law (in Plain English)® for Galleries, and Estate Planning (in Plain English).
DuBoff continues to serve as an educator by presenting continuing legal education programs for attorneys and seminars for nonlawyers. He has lectured all over the world including a recent keynote speech in Beijing, China.
Christopher Perea graduated from Cornell University, where he majored in English Literature and History. He then became a substitute teacher in California and ultimately went to Willamette Law School. While attending law school he worked in both the Deschutes County General Counsel’s office and the Marion County District Attorney’s office. Chris has assisted his father, a prominent labor arbitrator, with employment arbitrations for a significant amount of time. He has firsthand knowledge of much of the material in this book. Chris is a coauthor of The Law (in Plain English)® for Galleries and now this book, Employment Law (in Plain English)®. In addition, Chris is a practicing attorney with the DuBoff Law Group P.C., where he handles cases of all kinds including many related to employment law.
Kenneth A. Perea served as an Intelligence Officer in the US Army from 1973–1974, following graduation from the University of San Francisco School of Law and admission to the State Bar of California. After active duty, Ken began practicing law in San Diego as in-house counsel for a large public entity, which included serving as management counsel in a number of labor-management disputes with its employees. Wishing to concentrate his practice to labor-management matters, Ken became in-house counsel for the largest public-sector labor organization in the State of California, headquartered in Sacramento, where he handled labor-management matters on behalf of public-sector workers.
In 1977, following creation of the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) with expansive jurisdiction over labor-management matters throughout the public sector, Ken began serving as an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in its Los Angeles offices. In his role as an ALJ, he focused on issuing orders concerning establishment of appropriate bargaining units, the conduct of representation elections and adjudication of the entire span of unfair labor practice cases from bad-faith bargaining to retaliation for the exercise of protected activities. While still serving as an ALJ, Ken was accepted as one of only twenty apprentices into the Labor Arbitrator Development Program at UCLA’s Institute of Industrial Relations, sponsored by the American Arbitration Association, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. After successful completion of the Program in 1980, Ken briefly heard cases part-time as a mutually selected Impartial Arbitrator in both the public and private sectors.
In 1981, Ken left PERB, returned to San Diego, and began service as a full-time Impartial Arbitrator of traditional labor-management disputes throughout Southern California. As binding arbitration gained acceptance for the resolution of employment law disputes generally, Ken, through the American Arbitration Association, expanded his arbitration practice to include cases involving the rights of employees not represented by labor organizations such as corporate officers, managers, and other non-represented workers.
In 1986, Ken was admitted to the National Academy of Arbitrators, where he was recently recognized as a thirty-year member. Ken has also served in various leadership capacities, including its Board of Governors, Membership Committee, and Committee on Professional Responsibility and Grievances.
During his over thirty-eight years’ service as a full-time Impartial Arbitrator of labor management disputes, Ken has authored several thousand binding arbitration awards in every imaginable industry in America, including entertainment, professional sports, horse racing, manufacturing, shipping, telecommunications, trucking and storage, hotels and restaurants, and the US Postal Service. His awards have involved all levels of the public sector throughout the Western United States, including Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, and Nevada. Ken is also a coauthor of Absenteeism in the Workplace, CCH and Chapter Editor of Discipline and Discharge, First Edition, BNA.
In his free time, Ken enjoys spending time with his family and friends, home gardening projects, collecting antique clocks, and fine wine tasting in California’s Central Coast and Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
Lauren Barnes is an attorney in Portland, Oregon, where her practice focuses on personal injury law. She graduated from Colorado State University in 2013 with a B.A. in International Studies and Political Science. Barnes graduated from Willamette University College of Law in 2017, where she was a Student Assistant for Legal Research and Writing, Vice President of the Moot Court Board, and an Executive Editor for the Willamette Journal of International Law and Dispute Resolution.