René Stemple Trehy is a distinguished professional with a lifelong dedication to the field of alternative dispute resolution. Her career spans diverse areas of law, where she has made significant contributions as a mediator, arbitrator, and special master. René has predominantly served legal professionals and judges throughout the Southeast, primarily in North Carolina.
From 1990 to 2002, she held the position of Executive Director of the Duke University School of Law's Private Adjudication Center. In this role, she spearheaded the design, implementation, and administration of ADR programs for settling class actions and mass torts. She also led the Center's mediation training and managed its dispute resolution programs. In 2002, René co-founded Beason & Trehy Conflict Resolution, LLC, marking a significant step in her career.
René's mediation expertise covers a wide spectrum of litigation, including medical malpractice, business conflicts, products liability, insurance coverage, employment issues, consumer disputes, nursing home negligence, wrongful death claims, and other catastrophic personal injury matters. She often deals with complex scenarios involving multiple parties, class actions, and insurance coverage disputes.
René Trehy has also excelled in arbitration, having served on three-member panels in cases involving professional malpractice, construction defects, products liability, medical malpractice, personal injury, and various other legal matters.
Her professional reach extends to appointments by federal and state judiciary as a Special Master in several intricate litigations. Notable examples include her involvement in a national class action concerning products liability, a multi-party CERCLA dispute in the Northern District of Alabama, and a class action settlement in Florida focusing on property damage and personal injury claims. Her work as a Neutral in the Individualized Claims Resolution Process for nationwide class actions demonstrates her significant contributions to the legal field.
René's passion for educating others in alternative dispute resolution is evident in her extensive teaching experience. She was a senior lecturing fellow at Duke University School of Law, teaching negotiation and mediation advocacy from 1992 to 2020. She has been a lead faculty member for mediation training in North Carolina. René has shared her knowledge at seminars across the nation and has authored or co-authored numerous seminar manuscripts and scholarly articles in the field of alternative dispute resolution.
René Stemple Trehy's outstanding contributions have not gone unnoticed. She has consistently been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America in the Alternative Dispute Resolution specialty since 2007. Her achievements were further highlighted when she was named the Raleigh, NC Arbitration Best Lawyers' "Lawyer of the Year" in 2013, the Raleigh, NC Mediation Best Lawyers' "Lawyer of the Year" in 2015, and the Raleigh NC Arbitration "Lawyer of the Year" in 2016, 2018, and 2020, and 2024 “Lawyer of the Year” in Mediation in Raleigh.René is a member of the North Carolina Bar Association's Dispute Resolution Section, having played a role in the Section's leadership as its Chairperson from 2012 to 2014. René graduated cum laude from West Virginia University in 1983 and earned her law degree from Duke University School of Law in 1986.