Cristiano, Robert J

Frederick W. "Rick" Ford is a solo practitioner in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, practicing almost exclusively plaintiff's employment discrimination law and mediation. A 1976 graduate of Howard University Law School in Washington, DC, Rick has been an active trial attorney in both state and federal courts for over 30 years. From 1984 to 1987, he served as Senior Trial Attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel, Headquarters, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, D.C., and was the original drafter of the EEOC's revision of the Equal Pay Act Interpretive Regulations, now codified at 29 C.F.R. 1620. He has testified before several state legislative committees and the United States Senate and served as legal consultant to the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee investigating the unauthorized transfer of presidential debate papers during the 1980 Presidential election campaign with his legal analysis published in the final Committee Report. He was the Legislative Vice-President of the Florida Chapter of National Employment Lawyers Association from 2004-2006. He has tried well over 200 cases in court in both jury and nonjury trials, obtaining notable results in jury verdict awards and settlements, including a two million dollar class action settlement against a Florida municipality in a race discrimination case. Since coming to Florida in 1989, the majority of his practice has been representing public employees against governmental employers, including police departments, state, county and municipal governments. He recently set a major precedent applying the Florida Sunshine Law to public employees' pretermination conferences. In 2006 and 2008, he was a candidate for Florida State Representative in District 83. He currently serves as President of Floridians for Health Care, a Palm Beach County-based statewide health care advocacy group supporting enactment of a national single payer universal health care system.