Areas Of Practice
Since 1972 John E. Sands has arbitrated and mediated nearly 4,000 labor-management, employee benefit, trustee deadlock, withdrawal liability, and employment law disputes. A member of the National Academy of Arbitrators since 1977, he has chaired its New York-New Jersey Region. 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 also 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 involving a wide range of employment, commercial, discrimination and sexual harassment issues. He also provides alternative dispute resolution strategies, services and consultation to businesses, unions, institutions and law firms.
Professional Experience
Professor of Law, Albany Law School of Union University (1973-83)
General Counsel, New York City Mayor’s Office of Labor Relations (1970-73)
Partner, Schulman Abarbanel Perkel & McEvoy (1965-70)
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, and in American Law. He is a former Trustee of The Turtle Back Zoo and of Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel, was an All-American fencer at Princeton, and earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
Professional Affiliations
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). He also chaired the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans' American Arbitration Committee that drafted the American Arbitration Association's revised Multiemployer Pension Plan Arbitration Rules for Withdrawal Liability Disputes (effective September 1, 1986). From 1981-83 he was honored as the AAA's J. Noble Braden Arbitrator. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel, a Mediator for the International Court of Arbitration for Sport, and a former Co-Chair of the ABA Labor and Employment Law Section’s Committee on ADR in Labor and Employment Law.