2024 Hall of Fame Inductee Rebecca Westerfield Class of 1976

Hon. Rebecca Westerfield (Ret.) (Class of ’76) served as a judge for the Circuit Court of Jefferson County before moving to San Francisco, California, in 1992, where she became a founding member of JAMS, the largest global private alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider. As a full-time neutral, Judge Westerfield has mediated and arbitrated thousands of complex U.S. domestic and cross-border civil disputes. She has received numerous awards and recognitions, including Chambers: Leading Mediators, National Journal ADR Champion, Trial Lawyers Association: Mediator of the Year, and Best Lawyers: Lawyer of the Year in Mediation.

Judge Westerfield has presented at numerous international programs on mediation in Asia and Europe, taught as an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, lectured at Stanford University Law School and most recently provided ADR training to Polish and Ukrainian judges and lawyers in Krakow and Warsaw, Poland and Lviv, Ukraine.

In addition to maintaining a full-time practice and her service on JAMS Board of Directors, Judge Westerfield has been active with various organizations dedicated to social justice, human rights, education and nonviolent conflict resolution. She has served as chair of the American Bar Association section on Civil Rights and Social Justice, as a member of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and as a member of the ABA Human Rights Commission. Judge Westerfield has also been a member of the Board of Directors of the Northern California World Affairs Council; Convergence (a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to facilitating bipartisan discussion of controversial public issues); the Human Rights Center of the University of California, Berkeley; the Foundation for Sustainable Rule of Law (an institute promoting mediation worldwide); and the Weinstein International Foundation, among other organizations. She is active with the National Association of Women Judges (U.S.) and the International Association of Women Judges.

Judge Westerfield is a certified mediator with the International Mediation Institute, an elected Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, and a member of Arbitral Women (an organization dedicated to promoting qualified women practitioners of international arbitration forums).

In pursuing her interests in nonviolent conflict resolution, Judge Westerfield organized a successful international forum involving more than 500 participants from 27 countries, including Elie Wiesel and Secretary Madeline Albright, to address the issues of “Justice, Religion and Conflict Resolution.”