Alternative Dispute Resolution
Jan. 31, 2024
Arbitrator disclosure: designed to ensure fairness
Disclosure is required whenever a reasonable, informed person could entertain doubts about the arbitrator’s impartiality.
Tricia Bigelow
Neutral , Signature Resolution
Hon. Tricia Bigelow (Ret.) is a neutral with Signature Resolution. As Presiding Justice and Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, and as a trial court bench officer for a combined total of 26 years. Retired Justice Bigelow presided over complex cases involving high-profile companies and public figures. She has authored three books on California law and procedure and lectured extensively on judicial ethics and fairness, civil motions and trials, and other topics. She chaired the Los Angeles Superior Court Civil Education Committee, served on the CACI jury instruction committee, and from 2006 to 2008 was Dean of the Bernard E. Witkin California Judicial College, where she oversaw the education of all new judges in California. She was awarded the California Judicial Council Ronald M. George Award for Judicial Excellence in 2014. In 2015, she was co-recipient of the Bernard S. Jefferson /award for distinguished service to judicial education from the California Judges Association.
Arbitration has frequently garnered disfavor among plaintiff’s counsel. Arbitrators are inherently biased, they say, with conflicts of interest that impact the way they rule on the cases before them. The system rewards defendants who provide repeat employment for their preferred arbitrators.
This is, alas, a misapprehension. Arbitration can, in fact, be an excellent way to resolve disputes outside of the courtroom. It offers parties an e...
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