Retired District Court Judge Whitehead began his career as a law clerk first for the Kansas Supreme Court and then the Nevada Supreme Court. He had an active trial practice for more than twenty-two years, trying over 100 jury trials, primarily in the State of Nevada. He was the co-author of the Nevada Pattern Civil Jury Instructions. During that time, he was also the Chief Tribal Judge for the Paiute Tribe.
He was then elected to the Second Judicial Court bench and served as its chief judge. While Judge, he presided over 300 jury trials throughout Nevada. He was appointed on multiple occasions to sit on the Nevada Supreme Court for an absent Justice.
In 1996 he opened his office for mediation and arbitration. Since 1985 he has conducted in excess of 3,700 mediations and numerous arbitrations and other ADR matters. The mediations have been conducted on cases from twenty-nine states and overseas. These cases have involved individual settlements in excess of one hundred million dollars and matters in dispute up to one billion dollars.
He has taught mediation courses at the National Judicial College and numerous legal and bar associations. He has lectured at Emory University on trial practice and conducted many other legal seminars.
He now provides dedicated facilities at his office in Reno where larger mediations may be comfortably housed. He also frequently travels out of state.