Administrative Policies

Among other things, people have been told that arbitration is cheaper and faster. What they've experienced in practice many times, however, is that sometimes arbitration takes just as long and is wrapped with just as many layers of bureaucracy and can cost as much or more than civil justice.

People never come into arbitration without having signed an agreement to settle a dispute privately, opting out of the trial courts with their rules of law and rules of procedure and juries and decisions being overseen by appellate courts.

When your clients enter an arbitration process, their intention is to have their dispute resolved outside the formalities and rules of the court system. Although more relaxed than the court system, arbitration still has plenty of procedural rules. The first rule is that the arbitration requires an administrator for the arbitration process and the selection of one or more arbitrators.

You have choices related to each of these components. The easiest and least expensive route for you and your clients is to have Mr. Bayer be the sole arbitrator and our office to independently administer the arbitration process. The most cumbersome and expensive route is to involve three arbitrators and an institutional administrator. Sometimes the parties chose to have Mr. Bayer serve as the sole arbitrator but have one of the institutions administer the process. We're happy to work with you, whatever your choices, but your choices can and will have consequences on costs and the time necessary to resolve your client's dispute.

Working with institutional administrators can be difficult because they take time, money, and add another layer of bureaucracy between your client and a quick, cost-effective, fair resolution of their dispute. When the parties agree to opt-out of institutional administration and hire us both to arbitrate and to administer the arbitration independently, our office can make the administration of the arbitration much easier and quicker and save you money at the same time. This specialty is often one of the primary reasons that parties chose to hire us.

Our office has distinct policies related to how you work with us when Mr. Bayer is your arbitrator. We also have policies related to how you work with us when you chose our office to handle your administration as an independent administrator.

Our workflow for handling arbitration processes, either administered by our office - as an independent administrator - or by one of the institutions (eg. AAA, ICC, JAMS, etc.) is outlined here.

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