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Karl Bayer
Karl grew up in a small East Texas towns with two sisters, a father who was a Methodist minister, and a mother who was a teacher. Karl graduated from Rice University with a B.A. in electrical engineering in 1971 and went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned an M.S. in biomedical engineering in 1973. His masters thesis focused on the organization of nerve fibers in the brains of turtles. He spent some time designing radar tracking systems, and routing school buses, and then attended law school at the University of Texas in Austin while he worked full-time for Don Adams in the Texas Senate. After completing law school, Karl worked for several law firms doing litigation and transactional work on both sides of the docket. Then he moved to Washington, DC, to be Congressman Kent Hance's legislative director. He litigated pesticide and toxic waste cases for the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington and then returned to Texas to work for a big firm in their environmental law section. He started his own litigation practice in 1982, specializing in plaintiff's personal injury. In 1989, after he lost a Supreme Court race and was deciding what direction to take, Karl got a call from a district judge who asked him to mediate an emotionally charged dispute. He had no experience, no training, and didn't know you could charge for mediation, but the experience drew him further into mediation, while he maintained a gradually decreasing litigation docket. Karl has been a participant in virtually every type of dispute known to mankind. You can find a list of the types of cases he's knowledgeable about and experienced with here. Many clients come to Karl because his real-live-lawyer experience lives right alongside his commitment to helping people resolve disputes without the expense and uncertainty of turning their decision-making over to a judge and a jury. He has a reputation for expressing strong opinions during mediations. Karl values everyone's right to a jury trial and knows some cases actually should be tried. But, from experience, he has learned that most cases can be resolved in a wiser and more efficient manner through appropriate methods of dispute resolution outside courtrooms. He fills a unique niche in Texas as a dispute resolution expert whose total life experience makes it easy for attorneys on all sides of all kinds of disputes to request his help. Karl continues to expand his practice into more decision-making roles. He is often asked to serve as a Special Master in federal and state district courts in Texas. This service is often in the capacity of a Markman Master in patent infringement cases but he also assists judges and litigants as they wade through discovery and other pretrial procedural disputes in all types of complex litigation. Writing and Speaking Awards Alyson Chaky
Alyson Chaky is the public face of our team. She grew up in a stable, two-parent family with an older sister in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. She attended only two Catholic schools from grades K-12. After high school, she worked full-time in women's clothing and then men's clothing, while she took a few courses in business at the community college. Within three years, she was supporting two attorneys in downtown Cleveland who handled juvenile law, personal injury and divorce cases and managed their office for them. She went to school part-time in interior design during the four years she worked there. In 2004, she started looking for somewhere warmer to live and something new to do. She and her husband, Tom, moved to Austin and in October she read a classified ad for a "dispute resolution coordinator" and found her way to Karl's office with its huge fish tank in the lobby. She still remembers wondering what she was getting herself into. Five years later, she feeds the fish in the huge tank every day and still sometimes shakes her head about all she's learning working with Karl. Because she finds Karl easy to work with, Alyson is energized every day. She watches Karl work and backs him up in the office and sometimes in the field. Because Karl thinks continually of new things to do in his business, and new ways to work with people, Alyson is challenged to keep up and do the same. This makes work fun and stimulating. There's always something new to learn. Alyson has learned that even when she's not the mediator, and not in the room, she still plays a crucial role in clients' disputing processes. When people find themselves in Karl's office for a mediation or an arbitration, they can trust 100% that everything is confidential with Alyson and that they can come to her for help or encouragement whenever they need to. If they just need a break, they can even sit with her and watch the fish! She understands that disputes are sensitive occasions and she's learned many ways to earn and keep people's trust, even when they're experiencing serious stress. With 250 mediations and at least 75 arbitrations under her belt, Alyson has learned a lot about the process of resolving disputes outside of courtrooms. She takes her role quite seriously and works hard to provide clients with a calm atmosphere, a nice buffett lunch, and seamless access to a creative dynamo of a mediator who cares passionately about everyone leaving the office feeling as happy as possible. Working hand-in-glove with Karl on arbitrations for four years, Alyson understands how important arbitration can be in a lawsuit. She goes the long mile to make sure that scheduling issues, filling policies, availability questions, and emergency hearings are brought quickly to Karl's attention. Because Karl can't be spoken to one-on-one during an arbitration, Alyson serves as an efficient go-between, ensuring that clients' communication gets the fastest response possible. Alyson fills a unique niche in Texas as a dispute resolution coordinator whose total work experience makes it easy for people wound up in disputes to get the help and support they need from us. Georgia the Dog
Georgia was rescued from a puppy mill on Super Bowl Sunday in 1996. She was as cute as any Lab ever is and she never chewed any shoes, dug any holes, or misbehaved in any other way. She's always been a well-behaved, loving, happy dog. By the time she was two, she was well-trained in all the basic commands, plus she could do double-blind retrieves of dummies on land and in the water. No matter where she goes, Georgia always finds a ball! She would rather die than not retrieve a ball that's thrown. She retired from bird-hunting when she was about seven and started her "My Dog Georgia Mediation Service" shortly thereafter. She's driven and hard-charging when it comes to carrying offers between rooms. At least until she gets tired, which happens faster the older she gets. (But isn't that true for all of us?) Georgia's License and Shot Records Victoria VanBuren
Victoria is the blogging voice for our team and also helps Karl with his publications. Victoria was on sabbatical from her studies towards a computer science degree when she saw Karl's ad, posted at The University of Texas, looking for a blogmaster. She checked Karl's background and could see that they had similar, diverse backgrounds - including law degrees from UT Law, legislative and technical experience, and ties to higher education in Monterrey. Victoria felt she could communicate easily with Karl so she applied for the job. And here we are! Victoria's publishing experience had shown her that publishing processes still at work in traditional law journals can sometimes make it take six months or longer before people get access to information they need now. She could see the potential for speeding up the process, getting information to people virtually in real time using a blogging platform. Despite the fact that Victoria hadn't been a blogmaster before, Karl trusted the diversity of her experience and her abilities to synthesize across disciplines and communicate legal and technical issues clearly and accurately. Hence, Victoria, who had been an attorney for a boutique intellectual property firm and prior to that, researching international business litigation and arbitration as well as political and economic risks in international licensing agreements, became a blogmaster. Because she is well versed in computer hardware and programming languages including Assembly, C/C++, HTML, XHTML, XML, Perl, JavaScript, and PHP, this isn't as big a stretch for a lawyer as one might expect. Known as a "worker bee," Victoria holds a B.B.A. in Finance from Southern Methodist University and a J.D. from The University of Texas School of Law. She wrote and published her first law journal article before she graduated from law school. While in law school, Victoria worked for Professor John S. Dzienkowski, selecting cases for inclusion in the textbook "International Petroleum Transactions." Having lived and studied in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., Victoria brings a unique perspective to Karl Bayer's team. Born and raised in Mexico, she is a native Spanish speaker and a graduate of the Monterrey Institute of Technology (Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey), or "the MIT of Latin America." She concentrated in physics and mathematics. Immediately after completing her work at the Institute, Victoria moved to Canada to study English and French. On her way back to Mexico, she landed in Dallas and managed to have her luggage lost at the airport. Charmed by the Texas hospitality, she decided to stay, even though she finally got her luggage back. Renée Kolar
Renée Kolar was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and moved with her family to Austin, Texas, when she was five. Before entering her senior year of high school, her father’s job took her family on an adventure to Grenoble France. Having always dreamed of living abroad, Renée decided to graduate high school early and join her family in Europe where she attended Saint Louis University’s Madrid Campus. After an extension of her father’s work contract there, she decided to make the most of her time in Europe and enrolled in a French university to finish her undergraduate studies. She bid farewell to her Spanish friends, delicious tapas, and flamenco dancing and made her way back to the French Alps to rejoin her family in Grenoble. She graduated from Université Stendhal (Grenoble 3) earning an undergraduate degree in Applied Foreign Languages with a specialization in translation. Her experience living abroad and studying translation taught her that often times misunderstandings between people arise not just from their language differences, but also from the absence of a shared cultural background. This experience put Renée in a position to facilitate communication between two cultures, sharing with the French and Spanish her unique perspective of the United States, often times in contrast to what they had learned from television and movies. In doing so, she also learned a lot more about her own culture. This introduction to international relations and diplomacy inspired Renée to return to Texas to pursue a J.D. at the University of Texas School of Law. Throughout her two years in law school, Renée has appreciated every opportunity to learn about different forms of dispute resolution. In particular, this past year, Renée participated in the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot competition, an annual international competition that takes place in Vienna. Her participation in this competition is how she met Karl, who stepped in to help coach the UT team. She learned much from him over the course of the semester and applied for a position with him as a summer intern. Delighted to be brought on board, Renee is looking forward to working with Karl’s talented team and helping him prepare to teach a class next year at the University of Texas incorporating the Vis moot competition. Brett Goodman
Brett grew up in the Dallas, Texas, area, where he continued to live through his undergraduate time at Southern Methodist University. After four years at SMU, Brett graduated with a degree each in finance, mathematics, and Spanish, but was still left with a bit of uncertainty. Thinking back to his college coursework, he realized that he most enjoyed the analytical and critical thinking skills required of him from his business law course. He decided law school was the next step, and as a die-hard Texan at heart, he matriculated into the University of Texas School of Law immediately post-graduation. While searching for a productive way to spend his summer after a trying first year of law school, Brett was fortunate to come across Karl Bayer’s website. Being impressed with the appeal to a wide audience through the style of the website and interested in gaining experience with alternative dispute resolution, Brett contacted Karl about a summer internship. Brett is now the newest member on the team, and in his limited time thus far, Brett has learned a great deal and feels privileged to be surrounded by such a talented group. Fred E. DavisFred is an experienced litigator and Mediator. His litigation experience covers over 40 years and has dealt mostly, though not exclusively, with medical malpractice litigation. As a mediator, he has mediated health care cases, other types of personal injuries, business disputes, and legal malpractice matters. He was recently trained to also mediate Family Law cases. He also has substantial experience in administrative law, representing physicians and other health care licensees before their respective licensing boards. Please feel free to visit his website and check his availability at www.fdavislaw.com. |