Alternative dispute resolution service providers are working to increase gender and racial diversity within their rosters at a time when more and more companies are moving employment disputes into arbitration.
About 80% of American private-sector, nonunion workers will be required to use arbitration to settle disputes by 2024, according to a 2019 report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy.
With companies increasingly using employment contracts to bind workers to resolve employment disputes outside of court, there should be more urgency to have those claims heard by arbitrators who reflect the diverse backgrounds and life experiences of the US workforce, legal observers said.
Yet the arbitration field remains dominated by White men.
Arbitrator rosters are first selected and compiled by ADR service providers. Both parties to an arbitration narrow down that list until they reach a consensus on the arbitrator overseeing their case.
Arbitrators who are accomplished in their field and well known—like jurists or Big Law attorneys—are prioritized by the parties, legal observers said. Women and people of color, historically underrepresented in those areas, are often excluded as a result.
But there have been improvements in racial, ethnic, and gender diversity among alternative dispute resolution service providers in...
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