The Retirement Dream: How To Become An Arbitrator

Please don't think that you're the first person to have had the idea of retiring into arbitration.

Everyone wants to be an arbitrator (or mediator).

Well, not everyone.

Everyone who has litigated for 35 years, and finds the endless quibbles becoming tedious, and would like to do something less stressful, and hasn’t cultivated enough hobbies (or saved enough money) to want to retire completely.

Those people want to be arbitrators.

There’re a lot of those people.

And, for some reason, all of them want my advice.

So here’s my advice.

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First, unless you are a very prominent person (and you’re not), you can’t just hang out a shingle and expect your arbitration practice to boom.  Even if you’re a very prominent person, you’re prominent as a litigator, not as an arbitrator, and people who know you for your litigation skills won’t necessarily want to hire you as an arbitrator.

So this ain’t easy.

Second — well, this ain’t easy, so don’t think that it is.  Many, many, many people who are approaching retirement have decided that being an arbitrator is relatively easy part-time work that would occupy them in their dotage.  If you think you’re the first person to decide that you’d like to be an arbitrator at this stage of your career, think again.  You’re not.

(Same deal for board work, by the way.  It’s part-time, relatively easy, and can pay phenomenally well.  So everyone would like to retire into it.  That’s one reason why very few people will actually be able to pull it off.)

Third, if you ask arbitrators how one develops an arbitration practice, they all say the same thing:  Get to know other arbitrators.

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Call them up.  Ask to sit in on hearings.  Build relationships.

From there, move on to the next phase:  Ask the arbitrators if they need ghostwriting help.  (Many busy arbitrators use ghostwriters to help them draft opinions.)  By assisting other arbitrators, you begin to earn a living near the arbitration space, and you can show other arbitrators just how competent you are.

Volunteer to do spinoff business.  Suppose the master arbitration decides the meaning of a clause in  a contract.  Now the parties must apply that meaning to 123 different employees.  One arbitration can thus spin off 123 mini-arbitrations, and you — a baby arbiter — might be the perfect person to oversee one of the smaller proceedings.

You can, if you like, try to have your name added to a list maintained by an organization known for arbitration (such as the American Arbitration Association, the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution, or JAMS).  There are reasons for and against being included on those lists.  I won’t go into those reasons here, but you should at least consider the idea.

Finally, get trained and pick up a credential.  Training could be helpful (even if you’ve represented parties at many arbitrations during your career), and a credential purports to prove that you know something about arbitration.  Along these lines, volunteering to serve as a mediator with your local court may kill four birds with one stone:  The experience gives you training; provides you with a credential; does some good by helping the court handle its workload; and introduces you to people in the community who might be impressed by your work.  That’s a powerful stone to throw.

Beyond that, one develops an arbitration practice the same way one develops a litigation practice.  You can write articles, if that’s your thing, to become prominent in your chosen space.  You can join committees that work with arbitrators, mediators, or special masters.  You can never dine alone.  And then you can get lucky.

I hope you do.  (Get lucky, that is.  I really don’t care who you dine with.)

But please don’t think that you’re the first person to have had the idea of retiring into arbitration.

And please, now, don’t come to me for advice.  I’ve given you everything that I know.


Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now responsible for litigation and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.