About Us

Hi, Folks. Randy Means here. I am the principal in Randy Means & Associates, LLC, a Delaware company headquartered in Wilmington, DE.  My company is the successor to The Thomas & Means Law Firm, LLP where I spent 30 years with my law partner Bob Thomas, an amazingly talented attorney/police legal advisor who, among other distinctions, managed the litigation in Graham v. Connor, one of the most important law enforcement cases ever decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.  His retirement March 31, 2020, ended Thomas & Means.

Like Bob, I am a nationally recognized expert in police law, leadership, accountability and systems. Many years in-house counsel to a major city police department, former department head at a state law enforcement training center, and past head of the national association of law enforcement legal advisors, I have provided legal and risk management services to hundreds of law enforcement agencies, including many of the largest and highest regarded, helping to solve the most complex and sensitive problems in American law enforcement. I have trained over a half-million law enforcement officials, including tens of thousands of police leaders, and worked for many dozens of risk and insurance management pools, police academies, professional associations, and almost every major provider of law enforcement training.

I have written two books and 100+ published articles on police law, risk management and leadership. I have managed the Chief’s Counsel column for Police Chief magazine and for many years wrote the law and risk management column for Law & Order magazine. I have spoken at ten IACP annual conferences, multiple annual conferences of the FBINAA, PRIMA and state police chiefs’ associations from New York to California. I have appeared on both the Law Enforcement Television Network and the FBI Training Network; my work has been mentioned in the Wall Street Journal and featured on 60 Minutes. 

A word about my earlier life. Son and brother of West Pointers, I of course joined the Navy. I was Operations Officer, then Executive Officer on a combatant naval vessel during my several years of active duty. For that service, I won the Navy Achievement Medal. I then attended the University of North Carolina School of Law, a top 20 law school, and remained in the Naval Reserves for six more years. I left the reserves as a Lieutenant Commander, Navy talk for Major, and received another Navy Achievement Medal for my reserve service.  I never intended a career in the Navy; I stayed longer than I meant to because I was having fun.  But enough about me.

My proudest accomplishment is having brought together what I believe is the strongest team of law enforcement experts ever assembled, at least by a private company, to assist me in my work. Our ABLE Team and Senior Consultants are shown here, but they are only part of our 60-person team, which in the aggregate has more than 1,500 years of full-time experience helping to guide law enforcement work.

Take a look and remember – we have another 30+ amazing team members! Please take a look at those tabs and remember we are at your service.