Nance L. Schick is an employment lawyer and mediator based in New York City, where the firm now known as Third Ear Conflict Resolution has been operating since 2003. Prior to law school, Nance worked in Human Resources and operations management at one of the most efficient corporations in the world. At UPS, she got world-class management training and developed an interest in employment law.
Planning to go to law school in the off-seasons, Nance spent a few years in the front offices of three minor league professional sport franchises. She worked with hockey legends like Bob Bourne and Warren Young and narrowly missed seeing Michael Jordan play AAA baseball. However, she had the pleasure of meeting icons such as Buck O’Neill and Branch Rickey III, who reminded her that even the elite have common human needs.
After starting law school, Nance transitioned from sports management to representing minor league hockey players in contract negotiations. Today, the firm continues to support athletic trainers, mascots, and other professionals in the sports and entertainment industries. The negotiation skills she honed in the sport industry guide her in creatively resolving complex workplace conflicts, from union shops to licensed professions.
Nance is certified in employment and ethno-religious mediation. She served as the Main Representative to the United Nations for the International Center for Ethno-Religious Mediation for two years.
In addition to her legal practice, Nance has been representing funeral homes since 2004 and has taught continuing education courses in the profession since 2011. A skilled educator, she taught Business Law at the American Academy McAllister Institute (AAMI) and served as a Compliance and Diversity Trainer at CUNY Queens College, where she was also a Title IX Investigator.
For more information, visit our In the Media page.
In Nance’s Own Words
When you have a workplace dispute, or conflict, it can consume you. Questioning everything you thought you understood about your performance in your role, you might obsessively look for signs you missed and that might have kept you safe. That’s the way our brains work.
It’s confusing because you try hard to check all the boxes: fair, kind, diligent, effective, etc. Yet here you are, facing a complaint, penalty, performance improvement plan (PIP), lawsuit, or termination.
This can’t be happening to you. Can it? What about all the sacrifices you made?
I understand what it’s like to lose a job you worked hard in.
When I was terminated from my position as Director of Marketing for a minor league hockey team, I was confused, too. I had done what a majority of the team’s 13 owners encouraged me to do. Or at least I thought so. I put in the most work hours, took on the most projects, and tried to fix every issue I saw. I looked past the sex discrimination and sexual harassment, accepting it as part of the culture I had to withstand. Until my employment was terminated and my earnings were withheld.
Wanting only to collect my earned commissions, I called the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division for help. After reporting the issue there, I was transferred to the Commission on Human Rights. I didn’t want to sue, but the skilled employees at these government agencies helped me see I had little choice and that my case was not just about my workplace rights.
I won the court case, but all I got was a piece of paper.
I won a default judgment in that case, but I lost time, money, energy, relationships, and more. I also never collected a penny of the judgment. As I learned in the courtroom and the classroom simultaneously, cases don’t play out like they do in movies.
This is why I focus on keeping people out of court. I think you are the one who knows best how to resolve conflicts in your life, even if you need occasional legal or other guidance.
You still have options; let’s discuss them.
To put you back on the path toward your big life goals, I wrote DIY Conflict Resolution, while I was recovering from a violent assault in 2014. Trust me. No matter what you are going through right now, you can get through scary experiences that seem like they will change everything you’ve worked for. And we can do it:
- Humanely
- Affordably
- Quickly
I came out of my lawsuit in a different career that I love. After the assault, I accomplished a decades-old goal. Let’s look for the good that can come from the “learning opportunity” you are facing. But first, let’s get the conflict resolved.