All too often, even skilled, experienced litigators fail to realize that arbitration is not merely a “court case” being heard in a conference room but rather, a creature of contract that the attorneys can fashion to meet the needs of a particular case. Arbitration presents a unique opportunity to customize the pre-hearing, hearing and post-hearing stages. This is especially important for complex commercial cases. This article provides an outline for practitioners to do just that.
Selecting the Arbitrator
Let’s start by presuming that you have an arbitration clause that merely tells you what arbitration provider to use and, possibly, the rules which will govern the arbitration.
