COMMENT OF THE DAY #42

A bundle is delivered to you. What to Do? Three Steps;-

1. Do Nothing – just store them in the corner. Wrong. At the minimum, you have to acknowledge their arrival by emailing the sender.

2. Before acknowledging, look at the contents to make sure what you have been sent is what you have received. You look bad if weeks/months later you notice documents are missing.

3. Having checked + acknowledged you have two more options. First, you do a read through in “glancing” style. Who the teams are? What is alleged? What the case is in outline but nothing more until a later date
OR
You make full notes – you read + mark up with margin notes or A4 notes + cross-refer to the documents.

What you do depends on your own work style + how pressed you are time-wise. You can put it on one side but not for long. Set aside time to familiarise yourself with the issue and the relevant docs. For myself, I always do A4 notes – they are there for later referral.

Best to treat every case conscientiously. Don’t cut corners. It will catch up with you. The best Arbitrators are not necessarily the best organised. But it does help!