About this practice
Many employers have adopted arbitration agreements due to the costs and delays associated with traditional litigation, as well as the growing number of workplace class actions. These agreements often include provisions that waive participation in class or collective actions. In turn, some plaintiffs’ attorneys, precluded from bringing these lawsuits in court, have reacted by filing numerous individual arbitration demands against the same employer, asserting similar claims. These filings can number in the hundreds or even thousands, effectively replicating the scale of a class action. This tactic can be used to pressure employers into early settlements rather than pay substantial upfront arbitration fees — typically several thousand dollars per demand — to defend these claims on the merits. Which is why a mass arbitration, whether involving dozens or thousands of individual claims, requires a strategic, carefully executed response.
Capabilities + strategies
Composed of seasoned class action lawyers, our Mass Arbitration team develops client-specific solutions for employers facing mass arbitration. We focus on resolving employment-related disputes outside of court in an efficient and cost-effective manner. We also have the bench strength and arbitration experience to strategically arbitrate a large quantity of individual cases, if needed.
- Defend against plaintiffs’ attempts to evade binding arbitration.
- Scrutinize individual arbitration demands to ensure they are valid and present cognizable claims.
- Vigorously oppose plaintiffs’ attempts to use mass arbitrations to drive up fees and costs.
- Use tech solutions, automation, and standardized practices to create efficiencies for pleadings, discovery, motions, and hearings that are generally similar throughout numerous cases.
- Provide guidance on advantages and disadvantages of consolidating individual employee claims in arbitration proceedings for discovery, merits hearings, or other purposes.
- Explore early case resolution and negotiations where appropriate.
- Retain arbitration providers with streamlined rules and fee schedules for handling multiple disputes involving similar claims.
- Devise a bespoke procedure for the efficient resolution, arbitration, or litigation of multiple claims, simultaneously or sequentially.
Preventive strategies
Our Mass Arbitration team collaborates with the firm’s Arbitration Agreements and ADR group, a nationwide team of attorneys who draft customized arbitration agreements for our clients, including provisions mitigating many of the risks of mass arbitration and, where appropriate, outlining specific procedures for mass arbitration of disputes.
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