Jay Welsh is an established innovator in the ADR field. After joining JAMS in 1991, he played a prominent role in the growth of ADR within the U.S., as well as internationally. Most recently, as former executive vice-president and general counsel, he led the expansion of JAMS to include twenty-three Resolution Centers around the country and was instrumental in the growth of the company internationally. He was in charge of training all incoming neutrals and all legal issues, and he engineered the acquisition of JAMS from the investment banking firm that had acquired it in 1989.

Mr. Welsh is a founder of the JAMS Foundation and has been a driving force in making it the largest private foundation in the ADR Community. The JAMS Foundation has provided more than $8 million in conflict resolution initiatives worldwide. Jay Welsh is on the Board of the JAMS Foundation, the Weinstein International Foundation, and the ADR Center in Italy.

A frequent lecturer and speaker, Mr. Welsh has conducted numerous training programs in negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and related topics throughout the world. He has assisted numerous businesses and government agencies in the formation and implementation of formalized ADR programs and has written extensively on reducing legal costs through the use of ADR. In 2010, he received a “Corporate Counsel of the Year Award” from the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Prior to joining JAMS, he practiced law in San Francisco and served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at both USC and USF Law Schools. He is a graduate of Hamilton College and Berkeley Law School.