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Mr. Granderson is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the City University of New York Law School. Before going to Law School, Mr. Granderson worked as a Municipal Bond Paralegal at the Law Firm of Brown and Wood and was a fundraiser for the United Negro College Fund's Year 2000 Capital Campaign. After graduating from Law School in 1994, he worked for Prudential Securities and Prudential Insurance for more than 5 years where he was part of a staff assembled to address the myriad issues associated with the sale of Limited Partnerships in the late 80s and early 90s. At Prudential Securities, his responsibilities included assessing the merit and viability of claims, responding to Broker inquiries regarding their U4/U5s, preparing brokers for arbitration proceedings. Mr. Granderson eventually identified a niche in the Compliance area where he performed firm-wide audits, and served as a Key Note Speaker on Compliance-Related issues, i.e. NYSE Rule 405, Outside Affiliations, Complaint, '40 Act, Suitability, etc., in addition to drafting On-Line Agreements. His Compliance experience and legal background enabled him to secure a position where he had firm-wide responsibility for managing Disclosure Reporting, i.e. Customer Complaints, Form ADV, updating U4/U5s for the MONY Group. In addition to those responsibilities, Mr. Granderson was the most productive member of a Compliance Department with 6 attorneys. With a caseload that exceeded 120 complaints (annually), Mr. Granderson negotiated the most settlements (24) and had the most regulatory defenses (9) , i.e. successfully rebutting the Regulatory presumption of culpability. In that year, those defenses saved the firm more than $1,000,000 in potential damages. While at The MONY Group, Mr. Granderson realized that mediation could be used to resolve disputes confidentially, and that efficient dispute resolution would protect the interest of the firm. His interest in mediation prompted him to complete additional Clinical training in Mediation at Columbia University Law School. His initial Pro Bono experiences were gained at the Safe Horizon Mediation Program in New York City. He continues to mediate disputes for the IMCR Mediation Center and for the New Jersey of the EEOC. His mediation experience (80 disputes) includes disputes involving vendors, tenant/shareholder disputes in Cooperative/Condominiums, contract disputes in Small Claims Court, Securities-Related matters and Employment Practice disputes. Mr. Granderson was also recently selected to join the New York Stock Exchange's (NYSE) Panel of Arbitrators, and the Employment Panel of the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution and is a NYS Lemon Law Arbitrator. Mr. Granderson is regularly requested to be Of Counsel on Employment Practice matters for his utilization of effective pre-litigation advocacy. After almost 7 years in the Securities/Compliance, he sought out opportunities where he could focus on Employment Practice issues. He was eventually asked to join Aon's Financial Services Management Liability Claims Group. While there, he recognized that Dispute Resolution Systems, i.e. conciliation, mediation, etc., could be used to address the myriad workplace issues that have been a burgeoning problem for many clients. This need was the impetus for The Granderson Group, which is a consulting Firm that uses Dispute Resolution systems in order to reduce Employment Practice Claims. |