Mark LeHocky, ADR Attorney in San Francisco, California

Mark is a mediator, arbitrator and special master with ADR Services, Inc. and a nationwide ADR practice. Prior to becoming a full-time neutral, Mark served as general counsel and senior executive to both Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, Inc. and Ross Stores, Inc., where he managed all litigation, ADR initiatives and other legal matters. Mark also served as part of the senior legal leadership worldwide for Nestle, S. A., and developed ADR training for its international legal team.

Prior to his general counsel roles, Mark spent two decades litigating, arbitrating and mediating intellectual property, antitrust, commercial, consumer and employment cases -- both class and individual actions -- for clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to individuals and small businesses.

Mark began mediating in 1999 when first appointed by the federal court in San Francisco to resolve actions involving complex IP, commercial, antitrust, and consumer and employment class actions. Mark's private ADR practice encompasses this same array of disputes as well as founder and partner disputes, data privacy, social media, insurance, mass torts and other complex matter.

Mark's approach is shaped by having worn nearly all professional hats in the legal arena -- as a litigator representing plaintiffs and defendants, a general counsel resolving hundreds of disputes and managing crisis events, and as a client. Core to that work is helping decision-makers of all types make realistic, risk-based choices based upon various alternatives and the realistic tradeoffs of each.

Mark earned his JD degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA from UCLA.

Mark also today teaches at UC Berkeley's Law School on the intersection of law, risk assessment, and business decision-making. After developing and teaching a course on the role of general counsel working with internal and external constituents, his new course "Managing Difficult Legal Conversations" explore the recurring phenomena of problematic legal conversations with clients, adversaries and courts, and strategies for navigating through them by incorporating behavioral science, organizational and individual dynamics and the input of a stellar list of guest contributors.

Mark has repeatedly been voted a Best Lawyer in America for Mediation since 2016 by Best Lawyers(c) and was voted Mediation Attorney of the Year for the San Francisco region for both 2024 and 2022. His extended profile is at www.marklehocky.com.