Arbitration Horror Stories

One of our readers sent me an email about his particular case. Our correspondence was as follows:

I just read your story about JAMS arbitration and it has confirmed a lot of what I thought. I am considering bringing a contract that I signed with another party to JAMS arbitration per the clause that they put in there but I have no idea what the costs will be. Before the ruling and legal costs that you were found responsible for, what were your costs in proceeding with the arbitration process? Thanks, and I hope all is well,

SW
Los Angeles, CA
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear SW:

To be honest, I don’t remember what the JAMS fees were, but I believe they were comparable to their competition. In fact, the arbitration fees were paid for by my opponent. What I found completely lacking was the integrity of my particular arbitrator. If you peruse around my blog, you’ll find some other ppl have had similar experiences to mine. I, for one, will never ever use JAMS again, if I can help it.

I hope that helps.

Best of luck to you,
Ehren Bragg
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Unfortunately I don’t have a choice based on the contract which specifies JAMS. I called them and they said $400 to initiate, then $1500 retainer for the retainer fee for the arbitrator, and then $500-1000/hr for his/her time, which is pretty crazy considering the dispute is over $500.

SW
Los Angeles, CA
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
That’s why this whole thing is so screwed up. We already pay for the court system and then we have to pay again – many times it’s approaching or even exceeding the amount we’re seeking redress of – with this arbitration system.

Best of luck to you,
Ehren Bragg

~ by ebragg on September 14, 2009.

Posted in arbitration costs
Tags: arbitration costs, jams