Expect to Be Treated Fairly and With Respect

For you to get the most benefit from an arbitration process you need to understand that Mr. Bayer is the judge, the jury, the appellate court and the Supreme Court all in one.

Given that the law gives Mr. Bayer so much power in an arbitration process, he goes out of his way to disclose anything that could compromise his ability to be fair in your case.

Your lawyer will begin the arbitration process with you by requesting Mr. Bayer's office run a conflicts checks on the parties and the lawyers. You and your lawyer may choose to interview Mr, Bayer once you are satisfied with the Conflicts Check. If you chose not to do a preliminary interview, you will meet Mr. Bayer for the first time when you participate in the initial arbitration.

Recognizing that his decision is final, Mr. Bayer takes his role seriously. He respects the fact that the parties agreed to arbitration in the hopes that things would go faster and less costly than litigation. He believes strongly that arbitration is neither litigation nor "litigation-lite." To prevent having the discovery process become as costly and burdensome as it is in litigation, clients must cooperate fully with their lawyers, producing the documents requested by the other side and giving meaningful, truthful depositions.

In arbitration, people have to play fair and act ethically. Perhaps even more so than in litigation. Mr. Bayer will help you to come up with discovery plans and scheduling orders that fit your case and manage the process so that it moves along quickly, yet fairly. But you must try hard to find requested documents. If you imagine that it will be easier in arbitration to be lazy or sloppy in producing evidence, please think again. From Mr. Bayer's perspective, clients need to try even harder to play fair in arbitration than they might in litigation. Think of Mr. Bayer and treat him the way you would a judge. Because that's what he is. Know that, just like a judge, Mr. Bayer will not hesitate to use a full range of approaches to deal with any perceived discovery abuses.

Bear in mind that the only way you can communicate with Mr. Bayer is through your lawyer. Please don't try to contact him directly. The most important things you need to know about Mr. Bayer can be discovered before he's even been chosen to arbitrate your case. Check him out thoroughly using Facebook and LinkedIn. Then, once he's been chosen to be your arbitrator, you need to mind your Ps and Qs.

In the end, you might not entirely like the result you achieve from arbitration, but you will have had a fair process and will have been treated with dignity and respect.