Advocates Invited to National Academy of Arbitrators Annual Meeting in Las Vegas

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Broaching new ground for this venerable organization, the National Academy of Arbitrators will hold its 2004 Annual Meeting in the entertainment capital of the U.S., Las Vegas, Nevada, from May 25 through 27 at the Rio Hotel. Advocates are invited join Academy members for the educational programs and special luncheon events, and the opportunity to talk to the country’s leading arbitrators “outside the hearing room.”

An extraordinary training opportunity for labor and management practitioners is being offered in the one-day advocacy skills training program on Monday, May 24, the day before the main program begins. Advocates will work with Academy-member arbitrators in small interactive group sessions. Advocates can attend this program separately, or can combine it with registration for the main, three-day educational program.

Speakers include leading advocates and arbitrators from around the country, who will participate in the educational panels in this unique conference that focuses on practice and substantive issues in arbitration. Highlights of the program include the following.

• Ask the Advocates, in which management and union advocates will respond to a series of questions from experienced arbitrators to provide their insights into the arbitration process.

• Mock Labor-Management Mediation/Arbitration/Trial, in which a federal judge, arbitrators, and union and management advocates will present different perspectives on a discriminatory discharge case.

• Innovations in Dispute Resolution - The Las Vegas Hotel Industry, a discussion of union organizing in the hotel industry and the development of the initial resolution process (IRP), its impact and effectiveness, and prospects for expansion.

• Invited Papers, from respected Academy members, on the 2002 Presidential Board of Inquiry on the Work Stoppage in the West Coast Ports, and optimizing mandatory arbitration in light of ongoing experience.

In addition to these programs, a variety of concurrent sessions will explore such topics as implementing remedies, developments in public sector grievance arbitration, the state of external law in the arbitration process, workplace privacy, employment arbitration and the Due Process Protocol, handling the complex arbitration case, and current issues in Canadian labour arbitration.

The first of two important luncheon addresses is in honor of the late and great David Feller, a former Academy president , who in his days as a union attorney made the winning arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in the “Steelworkers Trilogy,” setting the stage for labor arbitration as we know it. The distinguished memorial speech will be presented by Michael Heyman, a long-time friend of Feller, who himself is no stranger to dispute resolution. When Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, Heyman steered the campus through the affirmative action controversy. He was Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution during the Enola Gay crisis. His other distinctions include being a former Dean of Boalt Hall Law School.

On Wednesday, Academy president Walt Gershenfeld will present the annual Presidential Address. Frank and Edna Elkouri will be in attendance and honored for their incomparable contribution to arbitration through the essential reference, How Arbitration Works. The conference will conclude with an informal coffee room chat about the insights and experiences of one of the Academy’s most distinguished members, Rolf Valtin.

Detailed information about the program, along with registration materials and fees, are available on the Academy’s website, www.naarb.org. The educational program has been approved for continuing education credit by the State Bar.