Labor Arbitrator Development Students Begin Unique Program
(Photo) LADP students Zipporah Wielgus and Amie Ravitz
There is a growing recognition of the need for arbitrators who reflect today’s workforce. To help accomplish this goal, the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution has a unique Labor Arbitrator Development Program (LADP), providing students with the training, skills, mentoring, and practice on which to build professional success. The program, which runs 15-months, is designed to assist labor and employment relations professionals transition to neutrality and build labor arbitration practices.
Seventeen exceptional applicants were selected to join the program during the summer of 2023. This is the third cohort of the LADP and the first time the program has been offered in over ten years. The LADP is just one component of the Scheinman Institute’s inclusive next generation of neutrals initiative. The LADP includes in-person and virtual learning as well as opportunities to shadow arbitrators.
In October, the students met in-person in New York City, and were welcomed by ILR Dean Alexander Colvin and Director of the Scheinman Institute and Jack Sheinkman Professor Harry Katz.
The first of the five days of training included advice and wisdom offered from a distinguished panel of arbitrators: Martin F. Scheinman, Scott Buchheit, Jeanne Charles, Howard Edelman, Deborah Gaines, and Haydee Rosario.
The sessions focused on contract language interpretation, evidence, just cause, ethics, hearing practice, and drafting arbitration awards. Several esteemed arbitrators and mediators, including Scheinman Institute faculty and members of the Institute’s Advisory Board served as instructors. The program’s faculty includes: Martin F. Scheinman, Melissa Biren, Marlene Gold, Sarah Miller Espinosa, Homer La Rue, Katrina Nobles, Ellen Gallin Procida, Jay Siegel, Alan Symonette, Timothy Taylor, Cheryl Teare, Julie Torrey, and John Woods.
The students received advice from members of the first and second cohort of the LADP, including Ed Davidson (First Cohort), Michael Eagleson (Second Cohort), Sarah Miller Espinosa (Second Cohort), Michael Ricci (Second Cohort), and Julie Torrey (Second Cohort).
The students will continue to engage in virtual learning on a monthly basis and will soon begin shadowing arbitrators. In preparation for shadowing arbitrators, each student wrote and received one on one feedback on draft arbitration awards, they developed a resume, and engaged in individual consultations on topics relevant to their transition to becoming a neutral.
The LADP students will next meet in-person in April, 2024 in Washington DC. The focus of the April sessions will be Public Sector Labor Arbitration and Introduction to Workplace Mediation. They will then continue their virtual learning and the program will culminate with an in-person week long practicum in NYC in January, 2025.