Awards

The Sid Lezak Award of Excellence is granted annually to a non-member who in the eyes of the IAM, best represents the furtherance of mediation as the preferred method of dispute resolution, and to the one who uses their personal and professional powers and persuasion to achieve this goal.

The IAM Presidential Honor is given to an outstanding IAM member(s), who is not a past-President. This award is granted at the discretion of the President.

2009

The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Right Honourable Lord Woolf of Barnes at the IAM conference held in London, England in September of 2009. 

Lord Woolf was recognized for his extraordinary accomplishments across many years of dedicated service as an advocate, judge, educator, mediator and leader in the reform of dispute resolution throughout the world.  His report Access to Justice, 1996 (The Woolf Report) has been a catalyst for the development of ADR in England. Lord Woolf, a chartered arbitrator, Special Adviser to CEDR and Co-Chair, Commission for Settlement in Arbitration, has lectured on ADR in the United Kingdom and many other countries. He also chaired the network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the European Union's Working Group on mediation.  Lord Woolf's prestigious career has included appointments to the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in 1979, as Lord Justice of Appeal in 1986 and Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1982. Appointed Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales in 2000, he retired from this position in 2005.  His report Access to Justice, 1996 (The Woolf Report) has been a catalyst for the development of ADR in England.

2008

Talbot (Sandy)  D'Alemberte was presented with the IAM Lifetime Achievement Award at the conference held in Coral Gables, Florida in May of 2008.  Dr. D'Alemberte has been involved for many years in the modern dispute resolution movement, chairing the first ABA committee on the subject and later served as a mediator, most notably in the water dispute between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. He has been active in the Bar, where he served as president of the American Bar Association (1991-92).

2007

No awards

2006

Frank Sander, Harvard Law School professor, co-founder of the Program on Negotiation, and a seminal figure in the development of the field of negotiation and alternative dispute resolution was presented with the IAM Lifetime Achievement Award at the IAM conference held at Harvard, April 2006. In 1976, Chief Justice Warren Burger asked Frank Sander to present a paper on alternative dispute resolution. Delivered at the Pound Conference, this paper is considered a watershed event in ADR history.

The Honorable Frank Evans, widely regarded as the founding father of Texas mediation, was the recipient of the IAM Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to him at the IAM San Antonio conference November 2006 . Judge Evans, who initiated the Texas alternative dispute resolution legislation, is also the director of the Frank Evans Institute for Conflict Resolution at the South Texas College of Law in Houston. Judge Evans was accompanied by his wife, Elizabeth, and graced the audience with stories about the early years of the mediation movement.

2005

IAM Sid Lezak Award of Excellence to Julie Macfarlane, in honor of her outstanding talent and vision in the field of ADR (April 2005)

2004

William F. Lincoln was presented with the Award of Excellence in recognition of nearly four decades of dedicated service as a pioneer, practitioner, teacher, trainer, system designer and process coach and for his courageous commitment to mediation, negotiation, peacekeeping and social justice.

Sid Lezak was presented with the IAM Presidential Honor on the 80th anniversary of his birth. IAM salutes his lifetime of success as a war hero, attorney, mediator and teacher, as well as his devotion to public service as the United States Attorney for Oregon, to community service and to the protection of individual rights.

2003

Leonard L. Riskin was presented a Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the C.A. Leedy Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, where, from 1984 through 2002, he also served as Director of the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution. Riskin has written many articles on dispute resolution and a seminal book, Dispute Resolution and Lawyers (2nd Ed., 1997), co-authored by MU Law Professor James Westbrook. Riskin?s article "Understanding Mediator Orientations, Strategies, and Techniques: A grid for the Perplexed," 1 Harvard Negotiation Law Journal 7 (1996), received the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution Award for Excellence as the best article an ADR published in 1996. Riskin has provided training and consultation in dispute resolution for numerous courts, law firms, bar associations, corporations, and law schools in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and he maintains a mediation practice. He earned his J.D. from New York University School of Law and his LL.M. from Yale University Law School. Since 1999, he has taught mindfulness meditation to lawyers, law students and mediators.

2002

IAM Presidential Award to Tracy Allen for selfless, inspirational contributions to the IAM and the mediation profession.

Christopher W. Moore was presented with the Award of Excellence. He is one of the founders of CDR Associates in Boulder, Colorado, and the author of the book, ?The Mediation Process,? a standard for practitioners and students of mediation. His work in the international community as an educator, trainer and mediator reflects his commitment to peacemaking and making the world a better place for all of us to live.

Michael Landrum, Programs Chair and Pat Coughlan, Naples Conference Chair were presented with the IAM Presidential Honor in special recognition of their inspirational and selfless contributions to the mediation profession.

2000

William H. Webster was presented with the Award of Excellence. Mr. Webster was appointed to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in 1970 and elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in 1973. He was appointed Director of the FBI in 1978, and held that position until 1987, a which time he was appointed Director of the CIA, a position he held until 1991. Judge Webster also served as Special Advisor to the Los Angeles Police Commission, which was formed following the civil unrest relating to the Rodney King incident. He is currently a senior partner at the Law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.

1999

The Honorable Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States of America, Washington, D.C., USA, was presented with the Award of Excellence. In 1995, she established a dispute resolution program that emphasized consensual resolution based upon negotiation, and where appropriate, the use of mediation and other forms of dispute resolution. Since then, she has been involved in pushing these types of programs farther, and encouraging all levels of government and business to follow her lead.

1998

Jim Henry, Past-President of the CPR Instititute for Dispute Resolution, New York, NY was presented with the Sid Lezak Award of Excellence. He was recognized for his contributions and achievements in promoting alternative dispute resolution.