Editorial Board

Joan Stearns Johnsen, FCIArb, CEDR Accredited, IMI Certified, is an experienced neutral, trainer, and teacher. She is the Director of the Institute for Dispute Resolution at the University of Florida Levin College of Law where she teaches international arbitration, arbitration, mediation, and negotiation. Joan also regularly conducts corporate trainings and speaks and publishes regularly on dispute resolution. She has been quoted on NPR, CBS, and other news sources. Joan has over thirty years’ experience as an arbitrator and mediator with particular expertise in financial services, mergers and acquisitions, entertainment, and other commercial disputes. She is a member of the American Arbitration Association mediation and arbitration panels as well as on a number of other panels. Prior to becoming a neutral Joan was an Enforcement Attorney for the Commodity Futures Commission in Washington, DC, Associate General Counsel for the Commodity Exchange, Inc. (now a Designated Contract Market within the CME Group) and Assistant Commodities Counsel for Smith Barney (now Morgan Stanley Wealth Management) both in New York. In addition to serving on the editorial board of the AAA’s mediate.com website. Joan is a member of the AAA’s Financial Services Advisory Committee, a past Chair of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution, current Co-chair of the International Bar Association’s Mediation Committee, on the Council of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution, and an academic board member of the Miami International Arbitration Society.