Your team spent weeks—maybe months—negotiating an important transaction. Someone, possibly not the deal lawyers, chose arbitration over the courts as a last-minute clause before signing. Now a dispute has arisen, arbitration is looming, it may last more than a year at significant cost, and you must select an arbitrator.
Outside counsel will present candidates, and your instinct may be to defer to them—but don’t.
Selecting an arbitrator isn’t a legal formality. It’s the equivalent of hiring a key outside adviser who will control the client’s timeline, costs, and ultimately exposure. The decision made on day one determines much of what follows.
And because the arbitrator must be acceptable to the other side, the window to exercise real influence is small. The business is looking to you to manage that.
What outside counsel do and don’t know. Outside counsel should know who the credentialed arbitrators are. They know the names that appear on institutional rosters, who has the right subject matter background, and who has been around long enough to be considered “established.”
What outside counsel may not mention—not from bad faith, but from habit—is that their shortlist often reflects their own institutional comfort more than your interests.
Law firms develop working relationships with arbitrators over years of cases. Those relationships breed familiarity, and familiarity breeds recommendations. The arbitrators considered “the usual suspects” may be excellent neutrals (the umbrella term in dispute resolution for an impartial third party who helps resolve a conflict without representing either side’s interests). They also may be busy, expensive, slow, or a better fit for a different kind of dispute than yours.
In-house counsel should ask: Whose interests does this shortlist serve? That question isn’t disloyal to outside counsel; it’s exactly the kind of oversight a manager is supposed to exercise.
What makes a good arbitrator for your dispute. No single arbitrator is right for every case, but there are qualities that matter in most commercial disputes. The starting point is straightforward.
The arbitrator should be genuinely qualified—in dispute resolution generally, and in the subject matter and business realities of your industry specifically. For a complex commercial dispute, subject matter expertise isn’t a luxury. It’s one factor that makes arbitration more valuable than a court proceeding before a generalist judge.
Beyond expertise, the quality that business clients most often undervalue is case management skill. Efficiency is a central value proposition of arbitration—faster resolution, lower total cost, more predictability than litigation. An arbitrator who doesn’t manage the process aggressively undermines a major reason for choosing arbitration in the first place.
Strong case management means setting and enforcing realistic deadlines, controlling discovery so it doesn’t become a litigation proxy, ruling on pre-hearing motions promptly rather than letting them accumulate, and refusing to allow either side to run out the clock. These aren’t small procedural virtues; they are the difference between an arbitration that concludes in eight months and one that drags into its third year.
Availability is closely related. There is a trap at the top of the arbitrator market: The most reputable names are often the least available.
A prominent arbitrator carrying 20 active cases isn’t likely managing your case personally—an assistant is. Before selecting anyone, ask directly about their current caseload and calendar; whether they can commit to specific hearing dates; and how quickly they typically rule on motions. The answers are more informative than the resume.
A good arbitrator reads the room by managing difficult counsel, keeping hearings productive, and maintaining the confidence of both sides in the fairness of the process. They listen genuinely rather than waiting to rule.
They are also responsive. Calls and emails are returned promptly, and procedural questions are resolved without unnecessary delay. They understand that arbitration parties have significant latitude to shape the process that court litigants don’t—to agree on schedules, discovery limits, and hearing formats that fit the dispute rather than defaulting to one-size-fits-all procedures. An arbitrator who encourages that flexibility is an asset; one who imposes unnecessary formality isn’t.
The arbitrator should be a hard worker who wants to get it right, who takes the business stakes seriously, and who is practical enough not to let perfect be the enemy of the good.
Knowing what you want. This isn’t the same as knowing how to assess whether a candidate has it. Published decisions, where available, reveal how an arbitrator reasons and writes. This includes whether their awards are clear and well-grounded or vague and hard to enforce.
Conference presentations and published writing show how they think about the field. If the arbitrator has appeared on podcasts and other recorded programs, you can judge their demeanor and learn what they value. Colleagues and other counsel who have appeared before the candidate can offer candid assessments of temperament and management style.
Less widely known: In many arbitration contexts, parties are permitted to have limited direct conversations with arbitrator candidates before selecting them. Where the governing rules and arbitration clause allow it, a brief call to discuss the candidate’s availability, approach to case management, and familiarity with the relevant industry is appropriate and often illuminating. Your lawyers can advise on what is permitted. If a conversation is allowed, use it.
Your role doesn’t end with selection. Once arbitration begins, resist the instinct to leave everything to outside counsel and periodic reporting. You can manage better with more.
Maintain close communication with outside counsel, and make active choices about the scope and pace of the proceeding. Arbitration offers flexibility that litigation doesn’t, and someone has to be willing to exercise it.
Consider appearing at important procedural conferences; an arbitrator who sees an engaged client, not just lawyers, has a different sense of what is at stake. And keep an eye on settlement. Arbitration doesn’t preclude resolution, and in-house counsel are often better positioned to detect the opportunity for business-to-business conversation that makes a deal possible before the hearing date arrives.
You can’t control outcomes. But you can control the quality of the decision-making that gets you to them—starting with arbitrator selection.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.
*Reproduced with permission. Copyright July 1, 2026 by Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc.
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