As Co-Chair of the State and Local Committee, he encouraged his younger committee members to become more active and to make their own contributions to the Section, which eventually led to two of those members becoming leaders of the Section and eventually its Chairs. He was a true mentor to the lawyers who followed him into leadership positions.
His additional contribution to the Section was his excellent service on the Board of Editors of the Journal of Labor and Employment Law for the period 2009 to 2018, during which he served as the Chair from 2012 to 2015.
He was also a president of the College of Labor and Employment and Lawyers.
He graduated from the University of Southern California College of Law and was admitted to the California State Bar in 1963. He joined the Los Angeles law firm of Arnold, Smith & Schwartz, which later became Schwartz, Steinsapir, Dohrmann & Sommers; the work of that firm included the representation of unions, individual workers, and employee benefit funds.
Bob became a litigation specialist and was sworn into the U.S. Supreme Court in 1970. In what became a textbook labor law case, he and his firm successfully argued Manhart v. Department of Water & Power before the Supreme Court in 1978, where the Justices agreed that, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women had the right to be paid and receive benefits exactly the same as their male co-workers. This precedent-setting case is often cited in labor and employment law filings to this day.
Always an active member of the bar, Bob frequently lectured on a wide variety of topics throughout his 50+ year career. In 2020, he was honored with the ABA Section of Labor & Employment Law Arvid Anderson Lifetime Achievement Award for his invaluable work in our field.
He was a native Californian, who spent his college summers working in Yosemite National Park in a variety of park jobs and became friends with the most notable mountaineers and rock climbers. He accompanied them on many climbs throughout the Park and high Sierra Nevada. He is credited with the first ascent on Mt. Winchell in the rugged Parkside Region. In later life, he and family members spent their summers in Yosemite.
He was always accompanied by his wife Barbara, who was a mainstay of the Section as its First Lady and whose passing we also memorialize.