The Imperative to Use All Available Talent in ADR Through Intentional Neutral Selection

This presentation is a follow-up to Prof. La Rue's appearance at last year's NYSDRA conference. It documents Professor La Rue’s career as a journey to create community through dispute resolution and a mentor of those seeking access and full participation in the art and science of dispute resolution. He is the founder and chair of the Ray Corollary Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving opportunity and inclusion in the ADR community in order to utilize all the available talent. Professor La Rue will reflect on his journey and the question “Who Am I in the Service of Others?” and how this credo can guide ADR professionals in building the next generation of leadership in the profession and intentionally building a pipeline for inclusion and opportunity in arbitration and mediation. The presentation consists of a short video and then a "fire-side chat" with moderator Chris Heagarty interviewing Prof. La Rue about key reflections from his career as an arbitrator and developing the next generation of ADR professionals, as well as his observations and recommendations for how to remove systematic barriers in arbitrator development and selection and to create more opportunities for parties and ADR selectors to "utilize all of the available talent."

Participants will be able to analyze how a neutral’s lived experience influences party perceptions of fairness, legitimacy, and voice in ADR processes.

This objective helps practitioners understand how identity, background, and experience shape the quality of dispute resolution — not just its optics. Attorneys and arbitrators will be able to articulate why parties are more likely to accept outcomes as fair when neutrals reflect or understand their lived realities.

Participants will be able to evaluate the structural barriers that limit diversity in neutral selection and apply intentional strategies to counteract them. This objective equips the audience to identify how traditional selection habits may perpetuate exclusion and how to Implement structured, intentional selection practices such as the Ray Corollary’s voluntary 30% inclusion target.

About J. Christopher Heagarty, Esq.

J. Christopher Heagarty, Esq. is the CEO of the Ray Corollary Initiative. He is a licensed attorney and mediator, with a background in public service, having served in the North Carolina State House of Representatives and as Chair of the Wake County Board of Education, He has had a long career in non-profit management, public policy research and advocacy, and judicial ethics, professionalism, and judicial selection reform, including leadership roles in national campaigns for judicial independence.