Web site aims to settle legal disputes away from public eye

By Abigail Goldman

Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 | 2 a.m.

It’s a new courtroom, like any other: There’s a jury box and deliberation room, a bailiff and a clerk, a place for witnesses to testify and attorneys to argue.

But the jury is hand-selected — paid for their expertise and background. And the judge, or rather, the arbitrator, is also chosen beforehand — personally picked by warring litigants. When high-stakes legal battles are won or lost here, you’ll probably never know.

That’s because this courtroom belongs to PrivateTrials.com, the business launched in May by former Nevada Supreme Court Justice William Maupin and former District Court Judge Gene Porter. Put simply, it’s legal arbitration for people and businesses who don’t want to go to court.

That’s the thing — civil disputes don’t have to be solved in court. In fact, there are advantages to keeping things out of court. And so, in recent years, what’s known as alternative dispute resolution has exploded. Services range from mediation to binding arbitration — conflict resolution that sidesteps the courts.

Think of it like this: If fighting neighbors can solve their problems outside of court, then why can’t fighting corporations? Of course, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is not that simple, and not without controversy.

Read between the lines, and ADR arbitration is also about problems with our courts. Civil litigants may like the idea of choosing their own arbitrator because elected judges are hardly created equal. Getting assigned a bad judge, local attorneys privately note, can ruin a case.

Jurors are another dangerous unknown, best summed up by comedian Norm Crosby: “Going to court means putting fate in the hands of 12 people not smart enough to get out of jury duty.”

Moreover, the wheels of justice grind slowly, and courts are clogged in the land of lawsuits.

What PrivateTrials.com and other ADR services offer, then, is a space where businesses or people who want to resolve conflicts can sit down, set the rules, and then fight it out faster and possibly with less risk. Parties caught in a complex construction defect dispute, for example, would agree on an arbitrator (usually a retired judge) familiar with such cases, and — if they choose — a jury of, say, construction experts. The logic here is best explained with a George Herbert quote: “A lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit.”

But just because ADR arbitration can be cheaper, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily cheap. ADR can cost thousands of dollars a day, prompting critics to suggest it’s do-it-yourself justice for those who can afford it.

PrivateTrials.com hasn’t had arbitration clients yet, though Porter told the Sun his service is suited for high-profile people or businesses, “when there’s a lot of money at stake.”

The other concern with private arbitration is just that: It’s private. This has implications for the public, which might benefit from knowing the outcome of high-profile cases. (Companies that negotiate disputes in secret raise the hackles of even the mildest skeptics.) It also has implications for the justice system. In court, a judge’s ruling can set precedent, shaping future rulings and sometimes business practices. A private arbitrator, however, rules in a vacuum, so the issue is only resolved for some.

These questions are being raised faster than they’re being answered. Private arbitration is relatively new, a service that’s expanded as the economy contracts. And the call for quicker, cheaper solutions overrides the desire for plodding, capital-J justice.

Porter says he hasn’t advertised PrivateTrials.com yet, but news has spread nonetheless, perhaps because of quotes like the one he reportedly gave Nevada Lawyer magazine this month: “There are no hard and fast rules here. This is custom-made justice.”