The Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee is concerned with developments and optimum use of all forms of alternative dispute resolution, including arbitration, mediation, summary jury trials, mini-trials, early neutral evaluation, as well as effective settlement and negotiation techniques. Alternative dispute resolution is considered both within the formal litigation process and pre-suit. The committee sponsors numerous programs to enhance the advocate's skills in all dispute resolution procedures because knowledge of ADR techniques is particularly essential for trial lawyers.

FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) Dispute Resolution announced in early October that it will expand its pilot program for eligible investors; the program allows investors to strike all industry arbitrators from the three-person panel selected to hear the investor’s case.

• The Mediation Process: Navigating the Quagmire
• The Manifest Disregard of Law Doctrine: Did It Survive Hall Street Associates?
• Is There an Optimal Time to Mediate?
• Key Considerations for Litigating Class Action Waivers Within Arbitration Agreements

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On May 4, 2009, the United States Supreme Court in Andersen v. Carlisle held that a litigant who is not a party to the relevant arbitration agreement may invoke Section 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), which entitles litigants to stay an action that is “referable to arbitration under an agreement in writing.”

In April 2009, the Second Circuit held in ReliaStar Life Insurance Company of New York v. EMC National Life Co. , --- F.3d ----, 2009 WL 941173 (2d Cir. 2009), that a generic (and common) fees and costs provision in an arbitral agreement calling for each party to bear its own attorney fees did not prohibit the arbitral panel from ordering a party the panel felt had litigated in bad faith to pay the other side’s attorney fees.