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Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Michael Mantell with another Family Law Matters. And I’m privileged to be joining Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel who’s the owner and managing partner of the Primus Family Law Group. Hi Bonnie.

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Hi Michael, how are you doing today? Doing very, very well Bonnie. We’ve been covering so many interesting topics and we really thank everyone who watches and sends in suggestions to us with topics. One of those topics that someone suggested is something called private arbitration.

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Now, what is private arbitration? You know, everybody thinks family law is all about going to court and litigating. Well, that doesn’t have to be the case. You can kind of resolve your matters either issue by issue or your whole case in front of a neutral arbitrator.

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Another word for that is like a judge. Now, we’re not judges, we’re not elected officials but we’ve been doing this so long, especially those of us at Primus. We all have more than a decade of experience doing this.

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And so we’ve seen our judges, we know the laws, we kind of know how things take out if you go to trial. So we’re able to take a case and review it and hear both sides and make people a decision based on what we feel would happen at trial. So it’s an alternative to go in a trial.

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You may already have attorneys, but your court date is, I don’t know, months, a year away and you don’t wanna wait, especially in COVID. You’ve got all the extra stress, anxiety, plus the delays. So you may wanna try something different and you can reach out and retain a private arbitrator to act like a judge and see if we can’t resolve it for you.

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Are there any particular red light indicators to you as someone who has decades of experience doing this that says, you know what? This ought to go into private arbitration. Let’s stay away from court on this one. Any signals to you that you’re alert to? It’s, you know, we have our, obviously we all have our own cases as well.

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So we even find in our own, it’s when you’ve got two parties who are so entrenched in their positions that no matter what their own attorney tells them, they’re not willing to budge because it’s, you’re my attorney. You’re supposed to be on my side. You should be advocating for my position.

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Why are you agreeing with them? And it usually it’s because your attorney knows what’s going to happen in the trial, which is a very expensive process. People don’t realize not just your attorney’s fees, it’s the court reporter fees. It costs $500 for half a day for a court reporter to sit.

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That doesn’t count the transcript. That’s not the filing fees and the runner fees. You know, it’s a very expensive process.

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So this way, sometimes we say, you just need to hear it from a judge. You just need to hear it from a judge, a neutral person who has no skin in the game. Well, again, if you’re court hearing several months or you just, arbitration can be just less expensive and take less time.

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Now, suppose we go to arbitration and I don’t like the result of arbitration. Can I say, no, we’re going to trial. You can choose two different types of arbitration, binding, whereas when the arbitrator makes the decision, it’s as if you went to trial or non-binding.

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And then yes, you get a second bite at the apple and whatever’s happened in arbitration is, you know. And what happens if you start to sniff a little bit of favoritism from one side to the other? And I get the idea that the arbitrator is taking her side or she says, I think he’s, the arbitrator is favoring him. Can you deal, how do you deal with that then? Well, it’s an agreement like anything else.

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So when you’re appointed or the two sides stipulate to use it, then they can stipulate to not use that person. There’s a difference though, between bias and agreeing with a position because it’s the legal argument that is the most valid. People have to take their emotions out of it, realize that because on a particular issue, the arbitrator may agree with the legal argument put forth on that issue.

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It doesn’t mean that there’s a bias. It’s the same thing a judge would do. You have the same processes.

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You can believe your judge is biased and try to challenge or appeal the ruling. So you can appeal an arbitration, even if it’s a binding arbitration? Yes, there are processes for undoing a binding arbitration, just like there are processes for undoing judge’s ruling. And don’t you, isn’t your experience that many people who quote, see bias, there really isn’t bias.

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They just are so insistent that that arbitrator rule in their favor, that if it doesn’t go in their favor, it must be biased because they assume they’re right. Whether it’s a binding, an arbitration or a trial, litigation, your ability to manage your clients becomes so critical. And I’ve seen you do that so well.

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In terms of helping- In arbitration, they’re not my clients. Remember, arbitration, I’m the neutral. To be very honest with you, I’ve never had the issue of arbitrator bias come up.

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We don’t, I mean, not a team primus, when we do these kinds of things, they know that we’re doing it with the best way possible and with hearing and reading and listening to everything. Right. It’s these people, the same way we zealously advocate for our clients, is the same way we’ll zealously arbitrate the issues and the legality of the issues.

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Well, your experience meets results and your ability to do that as well and sensitively as you do speaks, I mean, it just speaks volumes. And that’s why so many people are enjoying these family law matters and being able to take information from your vast experience. If people want to talk with you further about any of these issues, how can they be in touch? They can reach out to us at 619-574-8000.

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We do offer a free 30 minute phone consultation to see how we can help. And if yours is kind of case that we can certainly arbitrate for you, or you can reach out to us at info at primusfamilylaw.com or just go to our website, primusfamilylaw.com.