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Allen M. Gruber

Gruber & Donnet, PLC

7050 Friars Road
Suite 100
San Diego, California 92108

619-549-8069

www.gruber-donnet.com


Business, Commercial, Consumer Protection, Contract, Creditor's Rights, Debt, Foreclosure, Legal Malpractice, Partnership Disputes, Real Estate

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In 2008, after having litigated a variety of real estate disputes for nearly 40 years, Mr. Gruber turned the bulk of his professional attention to helping parties resolve their disputes by way of arbitration and mediation.

AV Preeminent Rated by Martindale Hubbell, the highest Professional and Ethical Rating, Mr. Gruber has been a licensed California Attorney since January 1970, and received the bulk of his mediation training from, among others, the highly respected mediator and educator, Peter Robinson of the Strauss Institute INS LINK at Pepperdine School of Law, and the vast bulk of his arbitrator training over a 30+ year period of time from the American Arbitration Association. Mr. Gruber has been a licensed California real estate broker since May 2008, and, taken together, has arbitrated and mediated well over 350 cases involving a variety of real estate disputes between real estate brokers, brokerages, title, escrow, and insurance companies, banks, hard money lenders, and flippers, along with attorney-client fee disputes.

Mr. Gruber received his bachelor’s degree in 1966 with honors from UCLA’s School of Business Administration, now the Anderson School of Management, and his Juris Doctor from the UCLA School of Law in June, 1969, having passed the July 1969 California Bar Exam and being sworn in as a California attorney in January 1970. Mr. Gruber was admitted to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court in 1985, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1976, and the Central, Southern, and Northern Districts of California in 1970, 1972, and 2002, respectively.

For nearly 40 years, Mr. Gruber was a civil litigator in real estate, business, and commercial matters before turning his attention in 2008 almost exclusively to alternative dispute resolution. For more than 30 years, Mr. Gruber has been an active member of the American Arbitration Association’s National Panels of Commercial and Consumer Arbitrators, and for the past several years has been a member of the American Arbitration Association’s Complex Litigation Panel. Mr. Gruber has also served as judge pro tem for the San Diego Superior Court.

As a major part of Mr. Gruber’s professional career, he has been, and continues to be, an adjunct professor at USD’s School of Law, teaching the live client Civil Clinic continuously since 1990 and the live client Landlord-Tenant Clinic from 2008 to 2013. These are mentoring programs for law students who are allowed by the California State Supreme Court and the California Bar to practice law in the civil arena for clients otherwise unable to afford attorneys. From 2012 to 2018, Mr. Gruber also served as in house counsel for Keller Williams San Diego Central Coastal.

In addition to conducting private mediations, Mr. Gruber serves on several mediation panels, including that of the American Arbitration Association, the San Diego Superior Court, the California Association of Realtors, and the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors Real Estate Mediation Center (REMC). In 2012, Mr. Gruber served as vice-chair, and in 2013 and 2014 as chair, of REMC’s Executive Committee.

Though Mr. Gruber’s mediation protocol is primarily evaluative. Mr. Gruber wants the parties to know it is their dispute and their mediation and that he is there to aid the parties in reaching a resolution. It is imperative to Mr. Gruber not only that he remains impartial, but that all the parties have an accurate perception of his neutrality. Notwithstanding, Mr. Gruber’s role is to assist the parties in understanding the nuances of the litigation in which they are or about to be engaged, along with the risks and costs of moving forward into trial.

There is no set format for all mediations. If a joint session is warranted, one will be recommended. If the parties are uncomfortable meeting in joint session, it is likely none will be held. If speaking separately to one or more of the attorneys outside the presence of their respective clients will move the matter forward, that’s what will occur. Confidentiality and confidence in the mediator, along with the mediator’s knowledge, patience, and perseverance, are the keys to a successful mediation, and those factors are what make Mr. Gruber enormously successful at what he does.

Mr. Gruber arbitrates only those cases that mirror those in which he engaged for nearly forty (40) years as a practicing attorney, giving him an expertise that, together with his well-earned reputation for fairness, neutrality, and impartiality, allows his arbitral decisions thus far to have remained unchallenged. Mr. Gruber prides himself on treating all participants equally and with the utmost respect.

EDUCATION

University of California, Los Angeles. CA: B. S. 1961 to 1966, graduating with honors.

University of California, Hastings School of Law, in San Francisco, CA: Law Review, June 1967.

University of California, Los Angeles, CA: J.D., 1969.

MEMBERSHIPS & AFFILIATIONS

California State Bar

California Bar Association

American Arbitration Association, Mediation and Arbitration Panels

San Diego Superior Court, Mediation Panel

National Association of Realtors

California Association of Realtors

San Diego Association of Realtors

Real Estate Mediation Center (REMC)

Legal Forum – California Association of Realtors

In 2002, Mr. Gruber was the speaker at a Lorman MCLE sponsored program on “Real Estate Litigation in California: Foreclosure and Trust Deed Practices, and in 1993, Mr. Gruber was the featured speaker at a California Trustee’s Association dinner.  Mr. Gruber is the author of several articles, including “The Extended Hand of Bily v. Arthur Young & Co.,” SDCCAR COMMERCIAL REPORTER (November 1996); “Don’t Forget To Get It In Writing,” COMMERCIAL REPORTER, Vol. 2, No. 2 and the San Diego County Commercial Association of Realtors, February 1995; “Brokers Not Allowed To Stipulate To Reverse Judgments,” THE LAWYER’S MAGAZINE, Vol. 61, No. 10, San Diego County Bar Association, October 1994; “California’s Lis Pendens Statute, Part 1, THE ADVISOR (Spring 1993); and “California’s Lis Pendens Statute, Part 2, THE ADVISOR (Fall 1993).

Mr. Gruber was lead trial and appellate counsel in a protracted battle on behalf of a doctor who was discharged from his duties at the Balboa Naval Hospital.  See Mir v. Fosburg, 646 F.2d 342 (Ninth Cir. 1980); Mir v. Fosburg, 706 F.2d 916 (Ninth Cir. 1983); and Mir v. Fosburg, 767 F.2d 933 (Ninth Cir. 1985).  Dr. Mir’s Petition for Certiorari before the United States Supreme Court was denied without a hearing. 

Mr. Gruber was also co-counsel with attorney Toni-Diane Donnet in Reveles v. Toyota by the Bay (1997) 57 Cal.App.4th 1139, the then precedent setting decision involving extended automobile warranties (Reveles was subsequently overruled in Gavaldon v. Daimler-Chrysler Corp. (2004) 32 Cal.4th 1246). 

Mr. Gruber firmly believes the mediation process belongs to the parties and will utilize those skills necessary to help the parties come to a resolution fashioned by them with the assistance of their respective counsel.  While the evaluative approach is the method with which most participants are most comfortable, other approaches, most notably the facilitative model, is employed where appropriate. 

Mr. Gruber believes that listening carefully to the parties and their counsel, understanding their legal positions as well as their underlying interests, and allowing the parties and their counsel the freedom to create their own solutions, is crucial to a successful mediation.  Crucial to the process is the realization that not every mediation results in a settlement at the first or the only session.  Rather, it is often just as important to follow up with phone calls and emails to facilitate discussions between the parties and their counsel so that resolution can be effected even after the participants no longer occupy the mediation’s chosen venue.  These phone calls and emails are engaged in voluntarily, for which no further charges are incurred.  

Mr. Gruber firmly believes in the mediation process, knowing from years of professional experience that it is far superior to what can be accomplished in litigation.  The parties save considerable time, enormous amounts of money, avoid the terrible and unavoidable stress of fighting each other in court, with outcomes often in doubt, and have the distinct satisfaction of shaping their own future.   

7050 Friars Road
San Diego, CA 92108

P: 619-549-8069
F: 619-684-3521
E: [email protected]