Message from the Co-Chairs
The Arbitration Committee is pleased to present the May 2019 issue of Just Resolutions. In this issue, Arbitration Committee members address some common misconceptions about arbitration that often frame the debates around the public policy of arbitration and drive discussions about whether to include arbitration clauses in agreements for our clients.
One such misconception is that arbitration is completely confidential. As Gerold Zeiler and Thomas Herbst explain, although the process isn’t public record, the arbitration clause or other agreements govern what parties to the arbitration may disclose outside the arbitration itself. At the core, the parties decide how public to make their arbitration.
Another misconception is that dispositive motions aren’t available in arbitration. As D.C. Toedt explains, motions for partial summary judgment can be an effective way to narrow issues or resolve the entire case with less expense to the parties. These motions are becoming more and more common in arbitration.
The two final articles in this issue discuss a broader range of misconceptions, one from the perspective of a veteran arbitrator who has dealt with an array of issues that arise in proceedings and the other from authors who work for an online dispute resolution provider.
We hope that this issue helps clear the air on many of the misconceptions about arbitration and helps address many of the concerns commonly, but mistakenly, cited in the ongoing public discourse about arbitration.
If you would like to learn more, please join our Committee or contact the Committee’s co-chairs
Kind Regards,
Ed Lozowicki and Harout Samra