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DISPUTE RESOLUTION METHODS What should be my primary considerations in choosing a particular dispute resolution strategy? Illustrations by Holly Haugen Mary Jane Stitt Partner Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP maryjane.stitt@blakes.com Peer Review Rated Michael W. Hawkins Partner Dinsmore & Shohl LLP michael.hawkins@dinslaw.com Peer Review Rated John F. Mariani Shareholder Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart, P.A. jmariani@gunster.com Peer Review Rated Private arbitration offers several advantages over litigation, particularly when multinational organizations are involved. If the parties are located in more than one jurisdiction, they can choose a neutral forum of convenience. There is also the ease of enforcement of the arbitration award internationally without needing to re-litigate the issues. And arbitration offers confidentiality of the dispute and ultimate award; the opposing parties may not want the precedent of a court proceeding or all the world to know the details of the dispute. As a general dispute resolution principle, it is critical to know your goals and know the other party. The key is to understand your interests and their interests. Particularly in mediations, the most effective results come from avoiding excessive posturing, and, instead, identifying the interests of the other side and proposing mutually agreeable solutions. Making reasonable proposals that can be backed up by objective and legitimate standards will go far in bringing the other side in line with your perspective. Mandatory arbitration, once viewed as the be-all, can be straightforward and definitive but is not necessarily as streamlined as it once was, and possibilities of appeal are practically nil. Mediation tends to work best as a precursor to arbitration or trial, giving both sides a glimpse of things to come and an objective outsider urging peace in place of war. Trial, while certainly the most involved, at least allows the check and balance of meaningful appellate review. Which to use? Focus on the level of complexity of the dispute; then, match a resolution methodology to that. For more information about these lawyers and their firms, please visit www.martindale.com. 04 www.martindale.com
Offering In-House Counsel New Objective Data for Evaluating Law Firms decision point Jacob Wackerhausen/iStockphoto Corporate counsel and other buyers of legal services frequently express their need for a robust and independent resource that can help them identify, evaluate and select law firms. They can learn about law firms from their Web sites, consult online directories to evaluate their credentials and review legal publications to read about their specific accomplishments. What is missing, though, is objective data in a standardized format that enables true apples-toapples comparisons of law firms. In-house counsel are asking for this type of reliable, objective data as a foundation on which they can build their buying decisions. A t LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell, we have conducted extensive interviews with in-house counsel around the world, asking them what resources would be most useful to them in the outside counsel selection process. This research has highlighted a critical need for reliable data based on feedback from other buyers of legal services regarding their outside counsel. After all, the first resource that virtually any corporate counsel uses when looking to hire a law firm is the old-fashioned referral from one of their peers. For example, some of the tasks that buyers of legal services told us they would hope to accomplish with this elusive objective data about law firms include: ■ Select outside counsel with confidence, using qualitative information from peers on key criteria for evaluating law firms; ■ Identify and evaluate the credentials of a law firm about which little is known, such as a firm in a remote jurisdiction; ■ Receive a true sense of a law firm’s demonstrated expertise by considering the feedback from other in-house counsel as additional data to supplement an evaluation of law firm profile data, LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings and other information; ■ Save time with the law firm evaluation process; and ■ Justify the selection of outside counsel to the CEO, board of directors and other key executives with an objective indicator of the firm’s experience and credentials. We took this feedback to heart and partnered with in-house counsel to develop a new information resource that would help meet these stated needs. LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell Client Review is a new product that is based on confidential surveys completed by current and former clients of law firms that provide client recommendations of a law firm’s quality of legal representation, client service and value for the money. Developed in collaboration with in-house counsel worldwide, Client Review also includes recommendations by practice area and industry. Just like our Peer Review Ratings, Client Review is a service to the legal profession facilitated by Martindale-Hubbell. All survey responses are anonymous and not attributable to specific respondents. We view Client Review as part of the next generation of decision support data from Martindale-Hubbell. These reviews aggregate feedback from law firm clients on a wide range of critical factors that buyers of legal services have told us are the key items that shape their selection of outside counsel. This is the kind of objective data that informs in-house counsel’s evaluation of those qualitative aspects of a law firm on which only their in-house counsel peers can comment. Client Review was developed from a broad spectrum of corporate counsel input and is prominently featured on www.martindale.com. No other comparable client review tool exists. To make this offering as useful as possible to in-house counsel, we need your help. Participation of in-house counsel as active reviewers of law firms is essential as we build this new professional resource that will be widely available to buyers of legal services on www.martindale.com, our industry-leading Web site for information about lawyers and law firms. Your continued participation in the process will provide you and your peers with a credible source of objective and anonymous input that you can rely upon as you evaluate, compare and ultimately select outside counsel. To help us continue building a useful and objective information resource to aid you in your evaluation of prospective outside counsel, please contact us at http://www.martindale.com/clientreview/ reviewer/ and learn how you can submit a Client Review of a law firm. Barry Solomon, Esq., is vice president and general manager, LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell. He can be reached at barry.solomon@lexisnexis.com. JULY 2007 05
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