Allan H. Weitzman

Founder

Allan H. Weitzman is a Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Court Mediator and a now retired Florida Bar Board Certified Labor and Employment Attorney – a combination of specialized certifications that are held by very few others.  He also brings to his roles as a mediator and arbitrator 44+ years of experience exclusively in the limited field in which he will serve as a neutral.

Prior to Allan’s retirement from the practice of law on October 31, 2017, all of those 44+ years were at the Proskauer law firm, where Allan was first a summer associate, then an associate and ultimately a partner in Proskauer’ s Labor & Employment Law Department, where he also served as head of the labor and employment team in Proskauer’ s Boca Raton office for 23 years after his 21 years in Proskauer’ s New York Office.  He also was co-head of the Disability, Accommodations & Leave Management Group, co-head of the Policies, Handbooks & Training Group and co-head of the Non-Compete and Trade Secrets Practice Group. 

During his career, Allan’s practice was multifaceted. Much of the time he was either litigating in state or federal court at the trial and appellate levels. He also appeared before administrative agencies responsible for the enforcement of the numerous anti-discrimination laws and before the National Labor Relations Board. His experience includes negotiating collective bargaining agreements and arbitrating contract disputes. In addition, Allan provided valuable day-to-day and crisis advice to clients in a wide range of businesses and industries, including retailers, banks, office supply companies, insurance, securities, health care, investigators, lodging and gaming, restaurants, television networks, high end fashion design, maritime, charitable organizations, public utilities, sports and entertainment, beer distributors, not-for-profits, importers, manufacturing facilities, staffing companies, construction, aerospace, transportation, higher education, museums, technology, country clubs and airlines. On any given day, the scope of his practice included personnel policy planning, sexual harassment and avoiding litigation when terminating employees.

Corporations also called upon Allan when their former employees engaged in conduct that violated their non-compete agreements. In that regard, Allan took a case all the way to the Supreme Court of Florida and successfully argued that a successor employer can enforce a non-compete agreement signed with a former employer, even when the agreement does not contain a successors and assigns clause and where the employees have not consented to its assignment (Corporate Express Office Products, Inc. v. Phillips, 2003 WL 1883697 (Fla. April 17, 2003)).

On behalf of the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), Allan and his partner, Paul Salvatore, submitted the amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Faragher v. City of Boca Raton. The employer's “affirmative defense” that was adopted by the Supreme Court in Faragher was based on the argument made by Allan and Paul that employees who bypass an employer's internal complaint procedure should not benefit from a strict liability standard.  Allan also co-authored SHRM's amicus brief in Chapman v. AI Transport, in which he successfully argued that an employer's subjective impressions could be used as valid criteria in its employment decisions. In 2004, Allan co-authored another Supreme Court amicus brief on behalf of SHRM. This time his arguments in the Suders case persuaded the Court to conclude that a constructive discharge was not necessarily a tangible employment action that would deprive an employer of the availability of the Faragher affirmative defense.

Allan was named three times by Best Lawyers as “Lawyer of the Year” in Labor Law - Management, Fort Lauderdale (2017), Employment Law - Management, Fort Lauderdale (2016) and Employment Law - Management, Miami (2013).

Allan has earned a first tier Chambers ranking for his outstanding employment law work every year since 2007, naming him “first-class” and a “notable practitioner” who is an “excellent advocate with strong ethics and an unrivaled understanding of business.” He was also described as “amazingly bright” and held out as “bringing the best of both worlds: legal acumen and superb business judgments.” “He gets to the point in the most efficient and effective manner – he has the highest professional standards.”

During Allan’s 44+ year career, Allan has arbitrated literally hundreds of cases, including both labor and employment matters.  Thus, Allan brings to the arbitral forum the knowledge and experience one needs to decide who will win and who will lose and to appreciate that parties who should win or lose are not well-served by an arbitrator who will split-the-baby. Because Allan is only a part-time arbitrator, he is not constrained in calling cases exactly as he sees them.

His mediation experience as a party in both labor disputes and employment litigation is also vast.  In mediation - - even as a party - - Allan’s experience was guided by mentors who taught him a settlement philosophy that he will continue to live by. The late Ed Silver, Proskauer’ s former Executive Chair and Chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department, stressed that in negotiations, “nobody wins unless everybody wins.”  Saul Kramer, also a former head of Proskauer’ s Labor & Employment Law Department, phrased his lesson in a different way but to the same effect: “Sometimes the bulls win.  Sometimes the bears win. But the pigs never win.”  As a result, Allan does not embrace the mediation theory that a successful mediation is one where both parties walk away unhappy. 

At a very early stage in his career, Allan was also taught by Saul that every demand or response based on “principle” “usually has two dollar signs in it (“pr$nc$ple”).” Using this lesson, Allan has spent a career settling cases by finding ways to avoid impasses based on principle.

Allan’s mediation persona has been described as one that finds “the delicate balance of being both authoritative and approachable”, with an “unflappable demeanor that doesn’t change no matter what the parties throw at him.”  Parties appreciate the “positive tone” that Allan creates in his mediation style and have found him “challenging” in the manner in which he strives to bring the parties to an ultimate resolution.

Allan is an avid golfer and had plans to spend his retirement days in the quest of becoming a single-digit handicapper.  But, his friends and family (who know Allan better than he knows himself) have convinced him to come out of retirement and off the golf course for one day a week so that he can continue to use his brains, experience and certified expertise in ways that have made him invaluable to his clients during his 44+ years of practice at the highest levels of his noble profession.

Since the eleventh grade, Allan has always wanted to practice labor and employment law.  By spending his entire professional career at Proskauer and becoming a partner in its Labor & Employment Law Department in 1981, those ambitions were fulfilled.

Allan is now ready to begin a second career in which he will honor the neutrality of his Cornell professors who built the foundation for his life and his livelihood in a field that he loves.