Inns of Court

Arbitration - the good, the bad and the ugly. That was the title of the presentation tonight at the meeting of Inns of Court in SATX. An arbitration company representative was on the panel pushing the virtues of arbitration and he did a darn fine job too. He made a lot of sense. But there was an audience of attorneys. The audience contained many opponents to the unilateral overbearing tactics whereby arbitration is a take it or leave it option in just about every contract that a consumer has to enter into - mortgages, credit cards, securities, buying your old car and working for your employer. If you do a deal with anyone that is in writing, and if you read carefully enough, you will see that you have agreed to binding arbitration. If the slab cracks - arbitrate. Your stock broker drains your account -- arbitrate. The loan company is giving you the runaround -- arbitrate. And, when you get to arbitration as a consumer [$125 charge] you get to arbitrate with the big-boys hand-picked arbitrator. The consumer has strikes to deselect arbitrators too, but what do they know. As one attorney said, "this is the consumer's one and only chance to have his case heard." One would think that consumers would have a right to have the award reviewed without much of a problem -- wrong. It just does not happen as it would "delay" the arbitration process. What do you think? Do you even care?