WAYNE THORPE: Can you tell us how you went about making the transition from being a practicing lawyer to a full-time neutral?

MICHAEL YOUNG: About seven to eight years into my career as a lawyer, in 1985 or 1986, I was representing a large group of municipalities in the Manville asbestos-related bankruptcy. As part of the claims resolution process, I, along with the other lawyers involved, designed what we would today call a “Med-Arb” process. This experience made me very interested in the dispute resolution field, which was not nearly as visible a field as it is now. More importantly, it led to my being introduced to the leadership of EnDispute and, through a variety of serendipitous events, I joined EnDispute in 1989. At that time, we had a broadly defined dispute resolution practice; in other words, we did everything and anything we could related to dispute resolution to sustain ourselves, including training and partisan counseling on settlement as well as design of dispute resolution systems – and the occasional assignment as a neutral.

Originally published in Dispute Resolution Magazine on August 12, 2015.