Audience
For Counsel
Practice notes, hearing protocol, and procedural craft.
What to expect from institutional procedure
Lex Arbitrate runs a tight procedural ship. Counsel appearing under the institutional Rules will encounter five distinguishing features that shape preparation: a published timeline the tribunal is expected to keep; evidence-bunching directions issued at the first procedural conference; witness-in-person preference for oral testimony with a reasoned-application route to remote evidence; technical-issue cost allocation where one party causes hearing delay; and scrutiny of the draft award by the institution before issue.
Counsel who prepare for these features at the outset find the institutional procedure efficient. Counsel who do not are caught by the calendar.
Counsel checklist before the first procedural conference
- i.Identify witnesses early. Provisional list, with topics each will address. Witnesses unavailable in-person flagged with reasoned application.
- ii.Map document categories for production. Use Redfern Schedule format. Object on grounds of relevance, materiality, or proportionality — not on a wishlist.
- iii.Bunch evidence by issue, not by chronology. The tribunal will direct evidence presentation issue-by-issue at the hearing.
- iv.Confirm hearing format. Physical, online, hybrid. Technical readiness of remote witnesses is the responsibility of the tendering party.
- v.Settlement window. Anticipate institutional encouragement of mediation or settlement conference at one or more procedural milestones.
- vi.Cost recoverability. Familiarise client with the institutional fee Schedule and the cap structure. The tribunal’s cost discretion is informed by the timeline performance of each side.