One of the difficult aspects of taking a complex case to trial is not the subject matter, necessarily, but the Court’s ability to schedule several consecutive days of trial.  Due to case volume, the court administrators can rarely carve out two or more consecutive days of trial without significant advance notice and, often, direct instruction and assistance from a judge’s chambers. As a result, a judge’s schedule may require you to have a week-long trial spread out over several weeks or months. Not surprisingly, attorneys, witnesses, and even the judges can lose some of the thread of arguments presented in such a disjointed fashion.

An alternative to trial is to take the case to arbitration.  An arbitrator is a third-party hired by the litigants to basically serve in the role of a judge-like finder of fact. The parties sign an arbitration of agreement and usually stipulate to certain ground rules for how they will handle the arbitration. For instance, some parties make the arbitration “binding;” in other words, the arbitrator’s decision becomes the law of the case. 

Another advantage to arbitration is to help limit costs through the arbitrator’s assistance in narrowing issues and avoiding some of the costs of broad discovery. Because the arbitrator is hired by the parties, he or she works on the litigants’ schedule – the arbitrator can set aside a full week for trial at a time that works for all involved and take the time to really hone in on issues without being at the mercy of the court’s availability. Rather than prolonged discovery schedules and waiting for trial, the arbitrator can help move the case to swift conclusion.

Eliminating the pressure of having to fit a two day trial into an afternoon before a judge helps the parties and the courts. Arbitration is one of many forms of “alternative dispute resolution” and by diverting cases off the Court’s docket and into arbitration, the parties are helping to free up the Court to adjudicate other cases.  There is the added advantage of the parties that unlike a court proceeding, the parties can agree to make the record and information disclosed within the mediation confidential.

Finally, utilizing an arbitrator is often like hiring a mediator. Having already reached an agreement to arbitrate and move the case out of court, it may also be possible for the arbitrator to help facilitate other agreements between the parties, be they discovery rules, stipulations of fact, or interim relief.  Agreements often lead to other agreements and once the parties start to work together, it may be possible to resolve the entire case. 

Even where settlement seems impossible, by moving their case into a venue where they will help set the schedule, parties will know that on a definite date they will have had their “day in court” and can expect a decision from a finder-of-fact. The certainty of those two elements, alone, may be its most attractive benefit.