Personal bio
Christopher Shulman is an alumnus of Stetson University College of Law. An attorney for more than 30 years, Chris is a member of the Florida Bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the U.S. District Courts for the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida. He spent the first 10 years of his practice representing individuals, labor unions, and employers in connection with a variety of labor and employment law claims, as well as handling estate planning, probate, business, and personal injury matters. Since January 2002, Chris has essentially limited his practice to service as a neutral dispute resolution professional. A member of the National Academy of Arbitrators (serving since 2022 as Regional Chair for the Southeast Region), Chris Shulman is also a certified Florida Circuit, Family, and County Court Mediator, a Federal Court Mediator and Arbitrator, and a Florida Courts Qualified Arbitrator. He arbitrates cases for the American Arbitration Association (AAA), the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA) Dispute Resolution Service, and privately; he has also served as arbitrator in a substantial number of Court-Referred Nonbinding Arbitrations. For eight years, he served as a Hillsborough County (FL) Childcare Licensing Hearing Officer and, over approximately the past eight years, as a Wage Theft Special Magistrate for Pinellas County (FL). In 2019, Chris was appointed to the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission roster of Special Magistrates (for Florida Governmental Collective Bargaining Impasse Proceedings). Currently, he is pursuing Membership, and eventual Fellowship, in the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb). Between service as a mediator, arbitrator, hearing officer, and federal-sector EEO complaint adjudicator, Chris has resolved or, in the case of mediation, helped the parties resolve, more than 7000 matters. Chris served two four-year terms on the Florida Supreme Court’s Mediator Ethics Advisory Committee, and, separately, two four-year terms as a member of the Florida Supreme Court’s ADR Rules and Policy Committee; he is currently in his second four-year term on the Florida Supreme Court’s Mediator Qualifications and Disciplinary Review Board (where he served as the Chair of the Qualifications Inquiry Committee, 2018 – 2019). He has also served as co-chair of the Hillsborough County Bar Association ADR Committee. An approved Primary Circuit Civil and County Mediator Trainer, and a Florida Court-Appointed Arbitrator Trainer, Chris is also an Adjunct Professor at Stetson University College of Law, teaching Negotiation and Mediation and law student Mediator Training classes. Finally, he has written articles published in the Florida Bar Journal, other Florida Bar Section publications, other Florida legal associations’ publications, and the Stetson Law Review.