ADR Leaders Discuss Current & Future Opportunities for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: How Can We Leverage the New Normal to Help Move the Needle?

2020 Frontline Champion Award Recipient Chris M. Kwok

Anyone who has had the pleasure of working with Chris can attest to his kindness, intellect, and generosity. As a full-time neutral with JAMS, Chris serves as an arbitrator and mediator on a wide variety of matters, specializing in complex employment disputes and issues involving cross-border and culturally diverse parties. His stellar 15-year career at the New York District Office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) translates to an unparalleled depth of knowledge concerning employment-related matters, and he is widely respected for his knowledge and experience in helping find solutions to the most complex challenges.

Beyond his commercial practice, Chris offers his time, talent and visionary leadership to many community organizations and affinity bars, including the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), where he is the founding Chair of the Dispute Resolution Committee, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York, and the Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY). Through his passion, dedication and efforts, Chris helps bring awareness of dispute resolution and concrete mediation tools to historically underrepresented areas of the legal community. 

Serving, as a mentor and guide to countless individuals beginning their dispute resolution journeys, teaching a Mediation Advocacy Practicum Court, and leading many D&I efforts in ADR, Leads D&I efforts in ADR by playing key roles in AABABY - integrated the spirit giving back to the organization (one result: creation of pro bono clinics in Chinatown), served as a model for minority bar associations across the country and is an active voice in the fight against discrimination and racism. 

Chris exemplifies the spirit of this award as an exceptional individual who has made a meaningful impact on the field of mediation or helped others through their commitment to the effective practice of mediation, we are now accepting nominations of mediation professionals, pioneers, and volunteers who deserve recognition of their significant contributions to the field of mediation.

2020 Honorary Chairs

Denise Shaw is the Past President of the Association for Conflict Resolution, Greater New York (ACR-GNY), and a Co-Founder of the ADR Inclusion Network.  A New York City-based mediator, arbitrator, and lawyer, Denise embodies the work of an ADR professional, specializing in high-stakes workplace, commercial, estate, family business, and multi-party conflicts involving financial, legal, cultural, religious, gender, or racial concerns. She works as a neutral for U.S. government agencies, primarily mediating senior management workplace conflicts and commercial business disputes for private clients.

Sheila M. Sproule is the Past President of the Association for Conflict Resolution, Greater New York (ACR-GNY), and currently serves as Assistant Statewide Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Coordinator of the New York State Unified Court System’s Court Office of ADR Programs. She is also the Statewide Coordinator of the Parent Education and Awareness Program and provides her leadership on a multitude of projects in support of Chief Judge Janet DiFiore’s Presumptive ADR Initiative. She serves as the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the ADR Inclusion Network, an organization specializing in addressing diversity, inclusion, and implicit bias issues in the ADR field.

Panelists, Along with Frontline Champion Chris Kwok

David L. Reinman, Esq. is the Supervisory Alternative Dispute Coordinator for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s New York City District Mediation Program. Formerly, he served as a Staff Mediator with the U.S. EEOC, worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Marine Corps.  David has worked as a supervising attorney with the Seton Hall University School of Law Conflict Management Program’s S.D.N.Y. Representation in Mediation Practicum.

Maria Volpe, Ph.D. is the Director of the Dispute Resolution Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. An internationally known scholar, Dr. Volpe is the Innovator Award recipient, 2010 Association for Conflict Resolution of Greater New York Achievement Award, 2011 Frontline Champion Award, among many notable others. She serves as an Editorial Board Member of the Conflict Resolution Quarterly and Negotiation Journal. Since 9/11 she has initiated the NYC-DR listserv, the monthly NYC-DR Roundtable Breakfast, and a variety of dispute resolution Make Talk Work public awareness initiatives.

Honorable Shahabuddeen A. Ally is an elected Civil Court Judge in New York County, where he serves as Supervising Judge. Formerly, he served as a Staff Attorney with the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, as Assistant Corporation Counsel in the New York City Law Department, and as Chairman of the Manhattan Community Board 12, Washington Heights and Inwood. Judge Ally sits on the Board of Directors of the Armory Foundation, Row New York and the Fort Tryon Park Trust, and was most recently appointed by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore as a Commissioner to the Franklin H. Williams Commission to address racial equality in the court system.