Robert A. Murray has been a practicing attorney for 31 years and a mediator in the North Bay Area counties since 1992. His law practice specialized in general civil litigation including negligence actions, insurance law, real estate litigation, personal injury, products liability and the defense of a variety of legal malpractice actions.

Mr. Murray is a co-founder and Director of the Arbitration and Mediation Center in Santa Rosa, which started in 1992.

After attending the University of California at Berkeley, he graduated from California State University at Chico with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Cum Laude, in 1970. He graduated from McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, in 1976. At McGeorge, he was a member of the Dean's Honor List and a lifetime member of the Roger Traynor Scholastic Society.

He was admitted to the California State Bar in 1976. Upon graduation from law school, he practiced for two years with prominent Bay Area law firms. From 1979 to 1995, Mr. Murray was a partner in the Santa Rosa litigation firm of Boyd, Murray & Wick.

From 1995 to 1999 he operated The Law Offices of Robert A. Murray in Santa Rosa. In January 1999 Mr. Murray merged his litigation and mediation practice into the then newly formed firm of Perry, Johnson, Murray, Anderson & Miller in Santa Rosa.

In 2002, he expanded the Arbitration and Mediation Center and focused his practice exclusively on mediation and other ADR services.  

He is a member of the Sonoma County Bar Association ADR section Steering Committee (Chair 2002), the Association for Dispute Resolution of Northern California, a chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution, and was on the Board of Directors of Sonoma County Legal Aid Society (1998 - 2003).

He participated on the education committee of the Collaborative Council of The Redwood Empire, a newly formed group exploring collaborative practice in civil disputes. Mr. Murray is a professor of Professional Responsibility at the Empire College, School of Law, in Santa Rosa.

He has received advanced mediation training at Gary Friedman's Center For Mediation in Law, advanced training through the Northern California Mediation Association and the First District Court of Appeal.

He is on the ADR Panels of Sonoma, Marin and Solano counties. He serves as a neutral arbitrator in the Kaiser Permanente Program and as a hearing officer in disability retirement matters through the Mendocino County Employees Retirement Association and the City of Vacaville Mobile Home Rent Program.

He has successfully mediated over 2,000 civil litigation matters, including simple and complex personal injury cases, construction accidents, business litigation, construction defect, employment, sexual harassment, real estate, trust, probate and estate cases and medical and legal malpractice claims.

He has served as a discovery referee and Special Master in various litigation involving personal injury, partnership dissolution, construction defect and employment matters.

He is available for arbitrations, mediations, neutral evaluations, special master and discovery referee assignments.

"The mediation process provides the parties a unique opportunity to be directly involved in the decision making and to fashion an acceptable resolution with the assistance of a knowledgeable and capable facilitator and thereby avoid the costs and uncertainty of litigation."

- Robert A. Murray