This presentation will focus on the competing interests of advocates, on the one side wanting to win for their clients, and on the other recognizing their professional responsibility to promote diversity and inclusion. A central part of the discussion will be the Ray Corollary Initiative as a plan of action to change the paradigm in ADR neutral selection.
HOMER C. LARUE, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law, is the founder and co-director of the Howard Law School ADR Program and ADR Certificate Program. He directs an ADR externship with the World Bank Group’s Internal Justice System and is the co-director of the Howard Law ADR Program.
Professor La Rue, a preeminent labor and employment law attorney and long-time mediator and arbitrator, is devoted to the increase of diversity among neutrals in arbitration and mediation and gives lectures on racial and ethnic diversity and inclusion in the ADR field. One of his current initiatives, the Ray Corollary Initiative, sponsored by the NAA, is designed to address the lack of persons of color and women selected as ADR neutrals.
Professor La Rue is a Distinguished Fellow in the International Academy of Mediators, a Past-President of SPIDR, now ACR, and President-Elect of the National Academy of Arbitrators, where he received the 2020 D’Almeberte-Raven Award. He is permanent arbitrator for collective bargaining agreements and a member of the AAA and FMCS panels.
He was a neutral-in-residence at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and served as an advisor and trainer for the Commercial Law Development Program of the U.S. Dept of Commerce, designed to assist in development of a regional ADR system for commercial disputes in Central and West Africa. He has published scholarly articles and recently contributed a chapter in Evolution of a Field: Personal Histories in Conflict Resolution. He has a BA from Purdue, an MA in Industrial & Labor Relations and a JD from Cornell.
