Shelby Grubbs, Atlanta Center for International Arbitration and Mediation, Atlanta

Georgia State College of Law announced Wednesday that Shelby Grubbs will leave his post as executive director of the Atlanta Center for International Arbitration and Mediation and return to Miller & Martin, where he will lead the Atlanta office.

That is the law firm Grubbs left to join the GSU arbitration center in 2014 when it was still under construction.

“I came to do a job, not have a job,” Grubbs said this week, reflecting on his role in helping the arbitration center get started. His recruitment was part of a push by the city's legal, business and political leaders to make Atlanta a hub for international arbitration.

GSU said in a statement that Grubbs helped design and launch the hearing facility and has overseen all aspects of the center's activity, including organizing more than 50 events and training sessions and teaching courses in international commercial arbitration. He will continue to serve on the Georgia State Law Board of Visitors as an adjunct professor, coach the college's “Vis Moot” team and chair the center's Arbitrators Council.

“Through his dogged and indefatigable determination and boundless energy, Shelby has taken the center from a germ of an idea to an internationally recognized institution in just a few short years,” said Doug Yarn, GSU law professor and director of the Consortium for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution.

The center's managing director, Magaly Cobian, will assume Grubbs' responsibilities and will continue overseeing the operations of the arbitration center as the managing director.

She said no other person will be brought in for now, but the center has a new staff member, Michaela Barnes, who will assist with the operations of the center.

The hearing facility, which opened in 2015, has hosted about 60 proceedings, including arbitration hearings, mediations and labor negotiations.

At Miller & Martin, Grubbs will take over as head of the Atlanta office from Chris Parker. Firm chairman Jim Haley said Parker will remain a member of the firm's policy committee , but “the transition will allow Chris to spend more time on client matters.”