Alan Davis

Attorney – Of Counsel

Downsizing after forty-two years at the law firm he founded in San Francisco, Alan Davis joined with Goyette, Ruano and Thompson in July 2024. Mr. Davis will be available to members of the law firm and staff in an advisory and consulting capacity.

Mr. Davis brings rich and wide ranging labor law, trial and appellate lawyer experience to Goyette, Ruano and Thompson. Mr. Davis trained as a trial lawyer by representing employees at the Workers Compensation Appeals Board, the National Labor Relations Board, the state courts and the United States District Courts.

By 1970, Mr. Davis had expanded his practice into the representation of public sector Unions. Among Mr. Davis’ many appellate successes were his representation of police officers in the City of Oakland where the California District Court of Appeals ordered the City to reimburse police officers for their safety equipment; his representation of firefighters in the City of Vallejo where the California Supreme Court expanded public employees bargaining rights to include staffing levels, personnel reductions, vacancy and promotions and hourly schedules; his representation of firefighters in the City of Pleasanton where the District Court of Appeals rejected the City’s challenge to the negotiability of personnel manuals; and his representation of firefighters in the City of Modesto where the District Court of Appeals rejected the City’s claim that drug testing requirements were not negotiable.

Mr. Davis has represented firefighter, police officer and non-safety unions in over ninety interest arbitration and fact finding proceedings in California and Hawaii. Included on this list is an award affecting 43,000 bargaining unit employees in the State of Hawaii in what is believed to be the largest interest arbitration award ever issued.

Mr. Davis drafted City and County Charter measures that provide for binding interest arbitration. He assisted the California Professional firefighters and the Police Officers Research Officer Association in drafting statewide interest arbitration legislation. He drafted legislation that protected private sector Unions from strike busting injunctions. Mr. Davis successfully represented the firefighters before the Public Employees Retirement Board after the City of Palo Alto submitted a ballot measure asking that City’s voters to rescind binding arbitration without having first negotiated in good faith with the Union.

Mr. Davis was a panelist on the 14th Annual Labor & Employment Public Sector Program, sponsored by the Labor and Employment Section of the California Bar Association and co-sponsored by the California Public Employee Relations Program. The panel, entitled “Hot Issues in Collective Bargaining,” discussed developments in the City of Vallejo that led to that City’s bankruptcy filing.

Mr. Davis was a co-author of California Public Sector Labor Relations, published by Matthew Bender in 1989. Mr. Davis co-authored the lead article entitled “Drug Testing Developments”, Spring 1990, published by the California Labor & Employment Law Section of the California Bar. Mr. Davis also co-authored the lead article in California Public Employee Relations (“CPER”), Issue No. 121, entitled “Interest Arbitration, Legality, Reality, & Value – A Labor Response to ‘A Management Viewpoint.'”

Mr. Davis received his undergraduate education at Northwestern University and his legal education at University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. He has been a member of the Bar of the State of California since 1966 and is admitted to practice of law before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and numerous United States District Courts. Mr. Davis is a Labor and Employment Section member of the California Lawyers Association.

Mr. Davis lives in Palo Alto where he was an elected member and President of the Palo Alto Unified School District Board of Trustees and an elected former Chair of the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee. He enjoys traveling, photography, staying fit and an occasional round of golf.