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The goal of arbitration is to provide a faster, less costly, and more private alternative to litigation in a courtroom. In exchange for these advantages, the parties agree in advance that they will share the costs of the arbitration proceedings and will be bound by its results. But what happens if, between the time the agreement is signed and when a dispute later arises, one of parties suffers a financial reversal and cannot afford to pay its share of the arbitration fees and costs?

When you sign a contract, you expect to be bound by its terms. But what happens when several contracts all relate to one transaction, and they differ slightly in some details – for example, on whether disputes are subject to arbitration?

It’s not unusual for a potential beneficiary to question the wording of a will or trust, claiming that the document doesn’t mean what it says. But it is much less common for the person questioning the wording to be the person who created the document.

When you are asking a court to deprive someone of a fundamental constitutional right, saying that you “believe” the person “likely” agreed to that surrender isn’t a very persuasive argument.

When Mom has dementia and her daughter, as her authorized representative, is handling her health care decisions, does the daughter have the power to sign a residential care facility’s arbitration clause on Mom’s behalf?

In the latter half of 2021, the California Court of Appeal issued two published decisions denying employers’ petitions to compel arbitration of employment disputes. These decisions provide important guidance as to what employers must do in order to successfully compel arbitration of lawsuits brought by former employees – including mistakes employers can avoid when attempting to meet their burden of establishing the existence of an agreement to arbitrate, and in ensuring that arbitration agreements provide essential fairness to employees.