Just two women arbitrators appeared in our first survey of large arbitrations in 2003, as we pointed out in a cover story the following year [“Madame La Presidente,” Summer 2004]. Six years after that first scorecard, those two women, Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler and Brigitte Stern, have risen to become the second- and third-busiest arbitrators in our survey, with 20 or more cases apiece. But while the highest echelon of the club has clearly been integrated, women have a precarious foothold in our high-stakes survey. Only ten women arbitrators appeared, representing 4 percent of about 250 arbitrators. “Of course progress is being made,” says Stern, a professor at the Université Paris I–Panthéon-Sorbonne, “but the progress is quite slow.”
She and Kaufmann-Kohler are the winners of a reputation tournament. They stand in stark contrast to the other women in the survey, who boast one case apiece, and the legions of women excluded. But they and other practice leaders interviewed agree that an up-and-coming-generation of outstanding women practitioners will—in time—crack the ranks of big-case arbitrators.
