MELVIN A. RUBIN

          Melvin A. Rubin helped pioneer mediation and ADR in his home state of Florida with his wife, Susan, a Ph.D. psychologist and forced him into this new thing called “meditation” in the early 1980’s.  Mr. Rubin tries to avoid characterizations as the ‘guru’ and ‘grandfather’ of mediation in Florida, by staying on the cutting edge of ADR.  He serves on the Board of Advisors of the International Association of Collaborative Professionals, a new approach for collaborative lawyering.  He has been lecturing on mediator malpractice for the past 2 years and has provided defense and consulting services in several malpractice cases.

          Mr. Rubin has mediated and arbitrated several thousand diverse ADR cases, including space satellite disputes, cigar band infringements, intergenerational family business disputes, class actions and occasionally who gets the stuffed bat.  He prefers the unique and challenging conflicts. Mr. Rubin and Mediation Services, Inc., his firm, have also been privileged to train over 6,000 professionals in ADR, nationally and internationally.

 Mr. Rubin continues to serve (over 10 years) as a member of the Supreme Court of Florida ADR Policy Committee, responsible for recommendations to the Court in the formulation of the standards and rules for mediators and arbitrators in the state of Florida.  He has been a Fellow of the American College of Civil Trial Mediators for over 4 years and a practitioner member of the Association for Conflict Resolution. 

            One of Mr. Rubin’s most gratifying experiences was to assist in the formation and creation of the ADR response to Hurricane Andrews’s devastation in the South Florida area in 1992.  Mr. Rubin also facilitated the “Children’s Submit” in South Florida, a conclave of over 200 regional and community groups and leaders meeting to deal with issues and crises of children and families.

Mr. Rubin is adjunct professor at the University of Miami Law School with evaluations by his students as “awesome” (a modern hip term referring to one’s ability to instill “awe in some”).  He previously served as adjunct professor in conflict resolution at  Nova Southeastern University’s Mediation Institute and at Florida Memorial College, the only predominantly African American college in the South Florida area. 

          Mr. Rubin lectures and writes extensively on cutting edge ADR topics, including mediator malpractice and collaborative lawyering.