JOHN E. SANDS
Arbitrator And Mediator
425 Eagle Rock Avenue, Second Floor Roseland, New Jersey 07068
Attorney At Law
Admitted In
New York State Only
Since 1972 John E. Sands has arbitrated and mediated over 4,000 employment law and labor-management disputes. Cases he handled have involved a wide range of issues, including race, age, sex and disability discrimination, sexual harassment, whistle-blower, executive contract, employee benefit, trustee deadlock, class actions, insurance, contract, and other statutory employment-related claims. He has been the Impartial Arbitrator of the National Hockey League/NHL Players Association and International, American, and East Coast Hockey League/Professional Hockey Players Association contracts, of Major League Baseball salary disputes, of National Football League injury disputes, and of disputes between the United States Olympic Committee and athletes. He has served as permanent arbitrator in a number of industries, including railroads, construction, airlines, maritime, longshore, retail sales, trucking, manufacturing, health care, higher education, and others in both the public and private sectors. Mr. Sands has mediated and arbitrated complex litigations and class actions involving a wide range of employment, commercial, discrimination, and sexual harassment issues. He has participated in numerous mediator and arbitrator training programs, both as faculty and student. A member of the National Academy of Arbitrators since 1977, he has chaired its New York-New Jersey Region. He also provides alternative dispute resolution strategies, services and consultation to businesses, unions, institutions and law firms.
A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, Mr. Sands has chaired the Labor and Employment Law Sections of three organizations: New York State Bar Association (1986-87), Association of the Bar of the City of New York (1981-84), and Association of American Law Schools (1976) and serves on the Executive Committee of the New Jersey State Bar Association Labor and Employment Law Section. He has been President (2013) and a Governor (2006-13) of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel, a Co-Chair of the ABA Labor and Employment Law Section’s Committee on ADR in Labor and Employment Law, and a Master of the Bench of the Sidney Reitman Labor and Employment Law Inn of Court. He also chaired the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans’ American Arbitration Committee that drafted the American Arbitration Association’s revised Multi-employer Pension Plan Arbitration Rules for Withdrawal Liability Disputes. From 1981-83 he was honored as the AAA’s J. Noble Braden Arbitrator. He is also an Arbitrator and Mediator for the International Court of Arbitration for Sport.
For ten years prior to becoming a full-time arbitrator and mediator, Mr. Sands was Professor of Law at the Albany Law School of Union University, where he taught Employment, Labor, Arbitration, Constitutional, and Insurance Law courses and developed innovative curricula for negotiation and dispute resolution. Before that he was General Counsel of New York City’s Office of Labor Relations (representing management) and a partner of Schulman, Abarbanel, Perkel & McEvoy (representing employees, unions and employee benefit funds). Mr. Sands is a widely-published author, and he has lectured throughout the United States and Canada to both lawyers and lay people on law and dispute resolution. His biographical entries have included Who’s Who in America, in the East, in Labor, in American Law and Best Lawyers in America.
