This page contains information about a presentation I have given on the advantages and disadvantages of business arbitration agreements, and related strategies to reduce the risk and expense of litigation.

Arbitration agreements can be put in virtually any kind of contract. Accordingly, everyone who prepares, negotiates, or signs contracts should know about the possible risks and benefits of such arbitration agreements.

This class talks about the advantages and disadvantages of arbitration and how to draft arbitration agreements that can achieve your goals while reducing the risk that you will fall victim to some of the dangers involved in using them. The topics include:

1. How to decide whether you want to arbitrate your disputes. We will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of business arbitrations and give you a checklist of factors to consider when you decide whether to include or to agree to include an arbitration agreement in your contracts.
2. How a business arbitration agreement can reduce your exposure to litigation. A properly drafted business arbitration agreement, together with other agreements that you can put in your contracts, may be able to reduce the damages that can be sought against you by an owner, contractor, employee, or other potential claimant by, for example, barring or limiting punitive damages or other kinds of damages that may be awarded against you. Arbitration agreements can also shorten the time that a potential claimant has to bring his claim and otherwise make it impossible or unattractive in many cases to make claims against you.
3. How arbitration works. We will describe how the business arbitration process works from the negotiation of an arbitration agreement through the enforcement of the award.
4. What to include in an arbitration agreement. Business arbitration agreements can choose, among other things, what kinds of disputes will be determined by arbitration, who will hear and decide the case, what limits, if any, will be set to the powers of the arbitrator, who will bear the costs, what law will apply, and how much discovery will be allowed. We will talk about some of these choices and how to decide which of them are best for you, using examples of different kinds of clauses that we have seen in our practice.

For more information, e-mail me at vdicarlo@dicarlolaw.com