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==Introduction==
Like mediation and collaborative negotiation, arbitration is a voluntary process. The parties to a dispute must all ''agree'' to use arbitration to resolve their legal dispute. Like those processes, arbitration is also an out-of-court way of resolving problems. However, that's where the similarities between arbitration, mediation and collaborative negotiation end. While the parties to a dispute may have agreed to use arbitration to resolve their dispute, it's the ''arbitrator '' who resolves their dispute, not the parties themselves.
Before the new ''[[Family Law Act]]'' became law in British Columbia, arbitration was rarely used in family law disputes, probably because most lawyers figured that if they have to have somebody make a decision in a case, it might as well be a judge. Arbitration was most often used in the context of commercial, labour , and construction disputes. In other places, such as Ontario and Alberta, the arbitration of family law disputes is well-established and has been for some time. The ''[[Family Law Act]]'', however, made a number of changes to the law that improved the usefulness of arbitration for family law disputes in British Columbia, and the number of people choosing arbitration over going to court is has been increasing as a result.
Arbitration has offers a number of advantages for resolving family law problems:
As well, it's often faster to arrange get a date for an arbitration hearing than it is for a court hearing. Although short trials of two or three days can usually be booked within eight or ten to twelve months, it can take a year or more to get a date for longer trials because the court is so busy. An arbitration hearing can be booked as soon as everyone has the free time in their calendars.
People can start arbitration right off the bat, as soon as a legal problem has come up, or they can use it to resolve a court proceeding as an alternative to trial. The result of a successful process of arbitration is an arbitrator's ''award''. If litigation has already started, the award can be turned into an order that the parties agree the court will make, called a ''consent order''. If the parties are married, a consent order may make more sense since they'll usually want an order for their divorce at the same time as they're wrapping everything else up.
The parties can meet with their arbitrator on their own or with their lawyers. As an arbitrator, I always appreciate having the parties' lawyers present. I recognize that having the lawyers at the mediation meeting costs the parties more money, but the lawyers are intimately familiar with how to write briefs, make legal arguments and present evidence, and arbitration hearings with lawyers are usually much shorter than hearings without lawyers. However, there is no rule that you must have a lawyer represent you in arbitration just like there's no rule that you must have a lawyer represent you in litigation.
The arbitrator has no stake in how the arbitrator turns out. The arbitrator must be neutral and have no bias in favour of either party. Most of the time, the arbitrator should have no special connection, business or otherwise, with either party, and the arbitrator must make sure that all parties are aware of any such special connections before the parties agree to hire the arbitrator.
==Working with "family law arbitrators" under the ''Family Law Act''==