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Customizing Employment Arbitration, Randall Thomas, Kenneth J. Martin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

According to the dispute resolution literature, one advantage of arbitration over litigation is that arbitration enables the parties to customize their dispute resolution procedures. For example, parties can choose the qualifications of the arbitrator(s), the governing procedural rules, the limitation period, recoverable damages, rules for discovery and the presentation of evidence and witnesses, and the specificity of required arbitrator findings. While other scholars have questioned whether parties to arbitration agreements frequently take advantage of this customization, there is little solid empirical information about the topic. In this article, we study the arbitration clauses found in a random sample of 910 …