Jonathan Andrews

You built one of San Diego's most respected employment litigation practices. At what point did you wonder whether it was time to move on?

I had just come off back-to-back trials -- one in the Northern District, one in the Southern District. The first ended on a Friday. The next started on Monday. Both went well. By every measure, everyone was supposed to be celebrating.

But I kept thinking -- there had to have been a way to avoid going to trial. What did we miss? These were cases that both sides, in hindsight, would have said should have resolved before they ever got there. That question stayed with me. How could I be better at helping my clients find resolution before it came to that? It led me to enroll in the full LLM program at Pepperdine's Straus Institute -- a complete immersion in dispute resolution. What I found there was transformative. Something shifted that I didn't expect. It stopped being about becoming a better advocate and became something else entirely.

As a trial lawyer, you always knew when you'd won. In mediation, what does winning feel like -- and is it better?

It is always better. Without question. Even when I won at trial, I seldom felt like I had truly won. The relationship between the parties was now defined by that outcome forever -- there was always something unresolved about it, even in the winning.

In mediation, I feel like I've won when both sides feel the process worked for them -- when they leave having been heard, understanding something they didn't before. When someone walks out with clarity and their dignity intact, that is when I feel like I've done something real.

Read the Full Interview: https://signatureresolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Life-After-Trials-with-Jonathan-Andrews.pdf