ATLANTA – JAMS, the largest private provider of mediation and arbitration services worldwide, is proud to announce that R. Wayne Thorpe, Esq. was awarded the 2017 Chief Justice Harold G. Clarke Award. Recognized for his outstanding contributions to the field of ADR in Georgia, the Georgia Supreme Court Commission on Dispute Resolution and the Dispute Resolution Section of the State Bar of Georgia presented Mr. Thorpe with his award at the December meeting of the ADR Institute.
Mr. Thorpe is the fourth recipient of the Clarke Award. The Commission and the Dispute Resolution Section created the Clarke Award in 2013 to honor the memory of the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold G. Clarke. From 1990 to 1994, when Justice Clarke served as Chief Justice, he led the Supreme Court and the State Bar of Georgia in creating a system that helped courts manage their heavy dockets and that offered litigants productive ways to resolve their legal disputes outside of litigation. Today that system helps settle tens of thousands of court cases a year through processes like mediation, arbitration and early neutral evaluation.
We congratulate Wayne on this well-deserved award. He has made a number of contributions to the ADR community both nationally and in Georgia. It’s wonderful to see him recognized with such an esteemed award.
-Chris Poole, JAMS President and CEO
Mr. Thorpe has been a full-time ADR neutral since 1998. He has served as mediator, arbitrator, facilitator, special master, and case evaluator in roughly 2,000 cases in at least 15 states, including many high stakes and complex cases, class actions, MDLs, and other large scale multi-party cases, and more than 500 arbitrations as sole arbitrator, panel chair or party-appointed arbitrator. He is Past Chair of the ABA Dispute Resolution Section, and he has been a leader in ADR ethics and other policy matters both nationally and in Georgia for many years. He has also served as an adjunct professor and guest presenter in ADR courses in several law schools.
About JAMS
Founded in 1979, JAMS is the largest private provider of mediation and arbitration services worldwide. With Resolution Centers nationwide and abroad, JAMS and its nearly 350 neutrals are responsible for resolving thousands of the world’s important cases. JAMS may be reached at 800-352-5267.