With an unprecedented backlog of criminal and civil jury trials on the horizon, rather than have frustrated clients and counsel waiting years for a resolution, an expected beneficiary of these delays will be increased by use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), namely a push toward increased use of arbitration.

It was purely coincidental that I was a panelist at the last live, in-person Pennsylvania Bar Institute CLE of 2020. On March 13, in the Wanamaker Building in Center City Philadelphia, I participated in on The Complex Commercial Case in Arbitration. Together with my law firm partner Kandis Kovalsky, and joined by Mason Avrigian Jr. of Post & Schell; Matt Olesh of Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel; and Dennis Suplee of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, we spent three hours discussing the history of arbitration and the United States’ growing trend favoring arbitration, including the preliminary conference, discovery, awards as well as considerations for increasing the efficiency in arbitration. That was on a Friday, and by Monday we were on our way to what has become the operating reality of 2020.