Prof. Thomas J. Stipanowich Pepperdine University School of Law, USA

Thomas J. Stipanowich holds the William H. Webster Chair in Dispute Resolution and is Professor of Law at Pepperdine University School of Law, as well as the Academic Director of the Straus Institute (ranked first by U.S. News the last nine years in a row), where he teaches courses in... read moreinternational commercial arbitration, negotiation, mediation, arbitration practice, contracts, remedies and international dispute resolution as well as professional skills training. In 2008 he received the D’Alemberte-Raven Award (2008), the ABA Dispute Resolution Section’s highest honor, for contributions to the field. He co-authored the much-cited five-volume Federal Arbitration Law (Best New Legal Book, Association of American Publishers), Commercial Arbitration at Its Best (2001); and Resolving Disputes: Theory, Practice, and Law (2d ed. 2010) and has authored many other articles and publications. He received the CPR Best Professional Article award (2010) for “Arbitration, The ‘New Litigation’” and “Arbitration and Choice”; and edited the College of Commercial Arbitrators Protocols to Reduce Cost and Delay in Commercial Arbitration (CPR Practical Achievement Award 2010, ABA Lawyer as Problem Solver Award, 2011). Prof. Stipanowich came to Pepperdine in 2006 after serving for five years as the CEO of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR Institute), a New York-based nonprofit think tank, and was previously a chaired law professor at the University of Kentucky. He is currently an Advisor for the ALI’s Restatement of American Law of International Arbitration. He has been a leading advisor on many major initiatives, and is an experienced commercial arbitrator and mediator specializing in complex domestic and international disputes. He has conducted in-house programs and workshops on negotiation, mediation, arbitration and conflict management at many leading corporations, law firms and organizations on several continents. He is a founding fellow of the American College of Construction Lawyers, a fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, an honorary fellow of the International Academy of Mediators, and the only non-British Companion of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.