Amy J. Glass has served as President of Michigan Mediation & Arbitration  Services since 1995.  A nationally recognized leader in the ADR field, she has been mediating cases since the late 1980s and has maintained a full time neutral practice since 1995.  Before 1995, she practiced law,  specializing  in civil litigation, employment law, and ADR.  Today, her mediation practice is devoted primarily to civil litigation cases received through direct private referral and court appointment (state and federal).  She serves as an arbitrator in employment, construction, & commercial disputes.

In addition to direct dispute resolution work, Ms. Glass designs court and corporate dispute resolution programs and teaches mediation to judges, lawyers and other professionals. She has presented at national conferences and public hearings on myriad ADR policy issues including  program evaluation, mandatory referral of cases to mediation; court-imposed “good faith participation” requirements; confidentiality, use & abuse of caucus, mediator ethics; and advanced mediation topics. 

Chair of the ADR Section for the State Bar of Michigan in 1999-2000, Ms. Glass has been a member of the governing Council of the state’s ADR Section since 1994. 

A certified mediator for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, Ms. Glass has served the Federal Court’s highly successful Voluntary Facilitative Mediation Program as an instructor and mentor since the program’s inception in 1994.  She has served as a neutral for the Michigan Court of Appeals since 1995, mediating and conducting settlement conferences pursuant to MCR 7.213.  Ms. Glass also serves on numerous private and national neutral panels.  She is certified to mediate ADA complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Justice and discrimination claims referred by the Michigan Department of Civil Rights and EEOC.  Ms. Glass' settled cases include monetary claims of several hundred million dollars.  Subject matter has varied and includes environmental & remediation cases; large-scale public & private construction disputes; patent & trademark infringement claims; employment; discrimination & harassment claims; insurance disputes; malpractice; auto negligence; products liability; catastrophic injury & death cases.

 Ms. Glass has received mediation training and certification from a number of nationally known programs including the Justice Center of Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia;  CPR; and the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation (PON).  In 1997 she was one of 24 experienced mediators invited by the PON faculty to participate in its first Advanced Mediation Workshop.  Since the late 1980s she has participated as both a trainer and student in numerous 40-hour mediator training programs as well as the SCAO-sponsored Training for Mediator Trainers.

 Appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court’s Dispute Resolution Task Force in 1998, she has continued to serve the Court and its Administrative Office on numerous ADR education & implementation projects since Michigan’s ADR Court Rules were adopted in 2000.  Ms. Glass served as lead ADR faculty for the Michigan Judicial Institute in 2000 and 2001. Intentionally involving a large (15+) and diverse faculty, she designed training programs for the State’s Judges, Referees, Court Administrators and Staff.  She prepared MJI’s Coursebook for training Michigan judges in mediation and to assist Courts in designing  local ADR Plans under Michigan’s new ADR Court Rules.  Other recent education projects include: the Annual Michigan Judicial Conference (full day presentations given to all Civil, Family, Probate and Appellate Court Judges) and the State Trial Court Assessment Commission. 

 Her ADR education projects for lawyers have included basic and advanced mediation training programs and presentations sponsored by the Dispute Resolution Section of the ABA; the U.S. District Court; the Michigan Court of Appeals; the ADR Section of the State Bar of Michigan; Annual Meetings for the Michigan Defense Trial Counsel and Michigan Trial Lawyers Associations; multiple regional and affinity bar associations, the Michigan Dispute Resolution Conference; the Annual Advanced Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Institute (ANDRI);  and ADR programs sponsored by the Michigan Institute of Continuing Legal Education (ICLE).

 Ms. Glass has taught ADR and law courses as an adjunct professor and guest lecturer in the Finance and Commercial Law Department of Haworth College of Business at Western Michigan University and in the Political Science Department of Hope College in Holland, Michigan.  Her published articles regarding ADR include works appearing in The Michigan Bar Journal, The ADR Newsletter and Callaghan's Michigan Pleading and Practice, Volume 8-A (Lawyers Cooperative Publishing, 1994, 1995). Before 1995, Ms. Glass was a shareholder and director of a 18-member Michigan  law firm.  In that setting she represented plaintiffs and defendants in state and federal trial and appellate courts and advised individual and corporate clients in business, employment, and general civil matters. 

 In 2002, Ms Glass was appointed a Fellow of the Michigan State Bar Foundation, in recognition of her professional abilities and contributions to her community.