About the Tribunal Secretary Platform
The Tribunal Secretary Platform is a service to help arbitrators who wish to appoint a tribunal secretary identify qualified individuals who can take on tribunal secretary appointments from arbitrators outside their own organization. Specifically, the Tribunal Secretary Platform allows arbitrators to search for a tribunal secretary by using filters such as language, jurisdiction of admission, experience with arbitral institutions, nationality, and other characteristics.
The Tribunal Secretary Platform has three main goals:
To make it easier for arbitrators to find a tribunal secretary with the right skills and knowledge for a specific case (for example, in terms of language, governing law, industry experience, cultural insights)
To create more visibility and options for tribunal secretaries to work with arbitrators around the globe.
To increase the diversity of the tribunal secretary pool.
The requirements that tribunal secretaries must meet to be listed on the Tribunal Secretary Platform have been set with these goals in mind.
Tribunal Secretary Requirements
Every tribunal secretary listed on the Tribunal Secretary Platform must have at least two years’ legal practice experience focused on dispute resolution in a law firm, government, institution, or other organizations; and documented experience in arbitration.
Beyond these minimum requirements, the listed tribunal secretaries will have varying levels of arbitration experience. The Tribunal Secretary Platform has been designed to allow arbitrators to identify secretaries with the optimal level of experience for a specific appointment. In some cases, arbitrators may want to select a tribunal secretary with less arbitration experience, such as when the role will be limited or the arbitrator wishes to train an individual from a country with less access to such opportunities. For other cases, arbitrators can easily identify tribunal secretaries who have qualified for one or both of the following distinctions:
Tribunal Secretary Experience Distinction:
Tribunal secretaries who have a minimum of six months’ experience working with an arbitrator as a tribunal secretary. These tribunal secretaries will be encouraged to provide more specifics about their level of experience in their profiles and/or CV.
Arbitration Experience Distinction:
Tribunal secretaries who have a minimum of two years’ legal practice experience focused specifically on arbitration in a law firm, government, institution, or other organization.
All tribunal secretaries are required to verify their practice experience with a reference from a supervisor and, if applicable, their tribunal secretary experience with a reference from an arbitrator.
How to Collaborate with a Tribunal Secretary from the Tribunal Secretary Platform
As explained above, the Tribunal Secretary Platform allows arbitrators to search for a tribunal secretary by using filters such as language, jurisdiction of admission, experience with arbitral institutions, nationality, and other characteristics. Additional information about the tribunal secretary will be available in their profile and their CV that can be downloaded from the profile.
The Tribunal Secretary Platform encourages arbitrators to request specific references from a tribunal secretary that is being considered for appointment. In some cases, the tribunal secretary may already have included such references in their CV.
Arbitrators must make their own arrangements with the tribunal secretary, and the Tribunal Secretary Platform will provide key templates free of charge to assist arbitrators, parties and tribunal secretaries in discussing and agreeing on the terms of the tribunal secretary’s appointment and scope of the role.
The Tribunal Secretary Platform does not relieve arbitrators of their responsibility to decide whether it is appropriate to use a tribunal secretary in any given case and, if so, for what tasks. The Tribunal Secretary Platform assumes no liability in relation to the qualifications or performance of tribunal secretaries. The tribunal secretaries are listed based on the criteria described above, confirmed by a written reference. The Tribunal Secretary Platform has not carried out any independent verification of the listed secretaries’ experience and skills. It is within the responsibility and discretion of each arbitrator to verify that the tribunal secretary meets the arbitrator’s requirements for a specific case, whether by interviewing the candidate, requesting and contacting references, or otherwise.