One of the key questions for any dispute is forum. Most parties are limited to selecting from the available court or courts provided by state and federal law as a function of jurisdiction and venue. Some contracting parties choose the courts of a particular forum in advance as part of their agreements. Other businesses and individuals take it a step farther and choose to opt out of the courts entirely by agreeing to resolve some or all of their disputes through arbitration.

There are aspects of arbitration that may be advantages or disadvantages, depending upon your viewpoint: privacy, typically faster resolution and streamlined discovery, lack of a jury’s emotion in the verdict and limited appellate rights. In addition, arbitration can have significantly higher up-front forum costs in the thousands of dollars, as compared to the relatively low forum cost in the hundreds of dollars to file a complaint in the courts.