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Arbitration

Arbitration Attorneys Serving Clients Nationwide

Arbitration is private litigation, and the parties who treat it as something less than that tend to lose it. The rules are narrower, the discovery is shorter, the record is thinner, and the award is usually final with almost no right of appeal. That combination rewards preparation and punishes improvisation. Kaufman & Hilbert PC represents companies, organizations, and individuals in arbitration from the first demand through the final award, litigates whether a dispute belongs in arbitration at all, and handles the court proceedings that confirm, enforce, or challenge awards. Based in Alpharetta, Georgia, and serving clients nationwide and internationally, the firm staffs arbitrations with senior litigators, because a single hearing in front of a single neutral leaves no room to get it wrong twice.

How Kaufman & Hilbert Can Help

Arbitration questions arrive at very different stages, and the answer at each one shapes the next. Our attorneys handle:

  • Representation in commercial, employment, construction, and consumer arbitrations from demand through award
  • Motions to compel or to stay arbitration, and challenges to the enforceability or scope of an arbitration clause
  • Arbitrator selection, challenge, and disclosure disputes
  • Confirmation, enforcement, vacatur, and modification of arbitration awards
  • Drafting and reviewing arbitration clauses in commercial, employment, and partnership agreements

Our Arbitration Services

Arbitration Advocacy

We represent clients across the full arbitration process: framing the demand or answer and any counterclaims, selecting and vetting arbitrators, negotiating the scheduling order and the scope of an intentionally limited discovery process, preparing witnesses and experts, presenting evidence at the hearing, and briefing the issues that decide the case. Because arbitral records are compressed, we build the record deliberately from the outset, preserving the arguments and objections that matter if the award is later challenged.

Compelling, Resisting, and Challenging Arbitration

Whether a dispute must be arbitrated is frequently the fight that decides the case, because the forum shapes the discovery, the cost, the privacy, and the finality. We move to compel arbitration when a counterparty ignores its agreement, and we resist arbitration where the clause is unenforceable, unconscionable, waived, or simply does not reach the claims at issue. We also handle who decides that question, which is itself often contested, and we litigate it in the correct forum.

Awards: Confirmation, Enforcement, and Vacatur

An award is not self-executing. We petition to confirm awards and reduce them to enforceable judgments, defend confirmation proceedings, and pursue or oppose vacatur and modification on the narrow statutory grounds available, including arbitrator partiality, failure to disclose, exceeded authority, and refusal to hear material evidence. We also handle collection and enforcement once judgment is entered, including in other jurisdictions.

Arbitration Clause Drafting

The clause written years before a dispute decides how that dispute will be fought. We draft and revise arbitration provisions in commercial contracts, employment agreements, operating and partnership agreements, and consumer-facing terms, addressing scope, seat and governing rules, number and qualification of arbitrators, discovery limits, confidentiality, fee and cost allocation, class and consolidation waivers, and carve-outs for injunctive relief. A well-drafted clause is a strategic asset. A copied one is a liability.

CASE CALLOUT MODULE

Representative Result: Harris v. SAL Financial Services, Inc. (Georgia Court of Appeals, 2004)

Robert J. Kaufman secured a Georgia Court of Appeals reversal for trust representatives challenging a brokerage firm’s effort to compel arbitration. The court held that, where the plaintiffs specifically contested the arbitration clause’s validity, the trial court rather than an arbitrator had to decide enforceability, preserving judicial scrutiny of the disputed provision.

Harris v. SAL Financial Services, Inc., 270 Ga. App. 230, 606 S.E.2d 293 (2004)

Representative Result: Sass Enterprises, Inc. v. Swift (Georgia Court of Appeals, 2002)

Robert J. Kaufman secured a Georgia Court of Appeals reversal for Sass Enterprises after a trial court blocked the company from arbitrating claims arising from its cemetery-business acquisition. The court enforced the parties’ broad arbitration agreement, confirming Sass’s right to arbitrate alleged escrow deficiencies notwithstanding the Secretary of State’s concurrent regulatory authority.

Sass Enterprises, Inc. v. Swift, 255 Ga. App. 871, 567 S.E.2d 329 (2002)

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every matter is decided on its own facts.

Who We Serve

We represent companies bound by arbitration clauses in supplier, distribution, franchise, and services agreements, employers and executives whose employment or severance agreements route disputes to arbitration, partners and members whose operating agreements require it, investors and account holders subject to industry arbitration rules, and construction parties whose standard-form contracts mandate it. Some clients want to be in arbitration, for the speed and the privacy. Others are trying to get out of it. We handle both, and we tell clients candidly which position the agreement and the law actually support.
Meet Our Team
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Charles Ralston
COO/CTO
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Robert J. Kaufman
Partner
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Alex B. Kaufman
Partner
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Jon Spetalnick
Partner
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Christian Zimm
Attorney
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Dylan Phillips
Attorney
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Why Kaufman & Hilbert

Senior-Led Representation. Experienced litigators prepare and try your arbitration personally, from demand through award.

Full-Service Strategy. Arbitration advocacy informed by the firm’s litigation, corporate, employment, and real estate depth.

Nationwide & International Reach. We represent clients in arbitrations and enforcement proceedings across the country and beyond.

Responsive, Practical Counsel. An honest assessment of whether arbitration helps you or hurts you in this particular dispute, before you commit to it.

  • How it works

Our Approach

01

Listen & Assess

We read the arbitration clause and the underlying agreement first, then the dispute, and determine whether arbitration is required, available, or worth resisting.

02

Strategy

We select the forum and rules position, evaluate arbitrator candidates, scope discovery realistically against the cost, and set the theory of the case the hearing will be built around.

03

Execution

We prepare and present the case with the discipline of trial lawyers, developing evidence, witnesses, and experts, and preserving the record for any later challenge to the award.

04

Resolution

We obtain the award and convert it into an enforceable judgment, or defend against confirmation and pursue vacatur where grounds exist, then handle collection.
  • FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Sometimes. Valid arbitration agreements are generally enforceable, but a clause can fail because it was never properly agreed to, because it is unconscionable, because the other side waived it by litigating first, or because the claims fall outside its scope. When a party specifically challenges the validity of the clause itself, a court rather than an arbitrator may need to decide the question. We review the agreement and the procedural history before advising on your options.
Arbitration is private, generally faster, and decided by one or more neutrals the parties help select rather than a judge and jury. Discovery is limited, formal rules of evidence often do not apply, and there is no meaningful right of appeal. The award is typically binding and can be vacated only on very narrow statutory grounds.
Often, but not always. You avoid extended discovery and motion practice, but you pay the arbitrators and the administering institution, and a three-arbitrator panel in a complex commercial case can be expensive. We assess the economics against the specific rules and the amount in dispute rather than assuming.
An award is enforced by petitioning a court to confirm it, which converts the award into a judgment that can be collected like any other, including in other states and, under international conventions, in many other countries. We handle confirmation and post-judgment enforcement.
  • CONTACT

Schedule a Consultation

Whether you need to enforce an arbitration agreement, get out of one, win the hearing, or collect on the award, the clause and the record decide the outcome. Call Kaufman & Hilbert PC at +1-770-299-0792 or email [email protected](General Inquiries), [email protected](New Client Consultation) to schedule a consultation.

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