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Who We Are

The National Academy of Arbitrators was founded in 1947 as a not-for-profit honorary and professional organization of arbitrators in the United States and Canada.  Members are chosen by involved parties to hear and decide thousands of labor and employment arbitration cases each year in private industry, the public sector and non-profits in both countries.  Admission standards are rigorous in keeping with the goal of establishing and fostering the highest standards of integrity and competence.

The Academy’s purposes are educational and collegial.  As a friend of the court, the Academy has participated in appellate litigation in both the United States and Canada where major issues affecting the institution of arbitration are involved.  It also works cooperatively with sister organizations such as government agencies, professional organizations, institutions, and learned societies in the field of labor-management and employment relations.

The Academy’s Annual Meetings are open to all who wish to attend and feature speakers who are labor-management and employment relations practitioners, arbitrators, judges, government officials, and law school and university professors.  Papers presented at the Annual Meeting are published by BNA in The Proceedings, which are available here free of charge and in a searchable format.

STATEMENT OF ACADEMY PURPOSES AND AIMS

The National Academy of Arbitrators was founded at Chicago on September 14, 1947.

The Academy is not an agency for the selection or appointment of arbitrators.  It does invite and sponsor activities designed to improve general understanding of the nature of arbitration and its use as a means of settling labor and employment disputes.  It meets in national convention annually, and more often in regional groupings.  Such meetings are from time to time open to non-members.

The Academy maintains, in addition to its Executive Committee, standing committees on Professional Responsibility and Grievances, Membership, and Research.  The “Code of Professional Responsibility for Arbitrators of Labor-Management Disputes,” jointly promulgated by the Academy, the American Arbitration Association and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, is the subject of continuing study and interpretive opinions by the Committee on Professional Responsibility and Grievances.

The Academy reprints, for its members, lectures on various aspects of arbitration delivered at its meetings.  It publishes a newspaper, The Chronicle, devoted to matters relating to internal organization and professional interest, which is circulated to the membership several times each year.  The Academy publishes yearly a volume containing the proceedings of its Annual Meetings.  A list of these publications is set forth at the back of this Directory.


Please click the link below to read the digital version of the NAA’s publication “A Quarter Century of New Directions in Leadership and Mission”.

A Quarter Century of New Directions in Leadership and Mission