Assessing and Correcting for Implicit Bias
by Andrew Flake
Especially in recent months, ADR practitioners, as professional problem-solvers who constantly evaluate and decide business and legal questions, have been examining a phenomenon that impacts all of us: implicit bias. We have been thinking about it,...
“And If You Didn’t Hear Us the Last Time”: More Emphasis on Arbitral Award Finality
by Andrew Flake
A just-issued Georgia Court of Appeals opinion underscores a message the state's appellate courts have been sending for some time: Arbitration awards are not subject to automatic appeal. They are supposed to be, and are presumed...
Location, Location, Location: Forum-Selection in International Litigation
by Andrew Flake
I once spent a week arbitrating a technology dispute in Helsinki, Finland, walking through the city center to our hearing each day in gusting snow. We were there because the parties' contract specified a Finnish seat,...
Phased ADR Clauses, Redux
by Andrew Flake
Having discussed phased dispute resolution, a process in our contracts that moves from more informal modes of discussion to binding ones, like arbitration, let's add some caveats. These provisions are not off-the-rack suits, to be draped...
Delivering a Compelling Closing in the Complex Business Dispute
by Andrew Flake
In complex litigation, we are continually distilling the simple from the complex, assessing multiple and often nuanced legal arguments, assessing hundreds of exhibits, sifting through the details of company work. With...
The Halliburton Decision, Part II: Considering the Contours of Arbitrator Disclosure
by Andrew Flake
In a prior post, we looked at the lead up to the U.K. Supreme Court's Halliburton opinion, an important decision that enters the thicket of disclosure practices, and emerges having cleared an open path....
Dotting the i’s (and Sealing the Envelope) In Arbitration-Award Challenges
by Andrew Flake
The Federal Arbitration Act is oriented toward encouraging arbitration and upholding arbitral awards. And just as the substantive bases to challenge an award are narrow, so too are the procedural...
The Halliburton Decision: UK Supreme Court Incorporates International Best Practices for Arbitrator Disclosure
by Andrew Flake
As the use of international arbitration expands, so does the need for consistency in its rules and practices, and confidence in its ability to ensure absolute impartiality. That is so for both advocates and arbitrators. So...
ICDR 2021: The Role of the Tribunal Secretary
A new Article in the updated ICDR Rules introduces what for many common law lawyers and domestic arbitrators is a curious character: the tribunal secretary. A tribunal secretary, much more common in the realm of international arbitration, is a junior associate who assists the tribunal in limited, non-decisionmaking roles.
Supreme Court Grants Cert in Servotronics Dispute; Likely to Resolve Circuit Split On Key International Arbitration Question
by Andrew Flake
On March 22, the Supreme Court granted cert in the ongoing Servotronics litigation, presenting the likely opportunity for the justices to decide an ongoing and important important question for parties to international commercial arbitrations: whether or not...