Book Review – Arbitration Road Map – Where’s the Book?
The State Bar of Texas, I guess, will publish absolutely anything. In this instance, the State Bar of Texas published a pamphlet, called it a book, and stuck in a CD to try and justify the nice cover.
Arbitration Road Map, A Guide to Clauses Procedures, and Hearings, Austin 2007, is divided into two parts. Part 1, all 38 pages of it, supposedly deals with general arbitration considerations and Part 2, all 37 pages of it, deals primarily with international arbitration. The third part of the book, pages 78 – 110, contains the appendices, which include sample arbitration clauses. The CD contains the text of the book and is searchable, but the paucity of the book is not improved on the CD.
The book contains a few good points about arbitration law and procedure, but nothing a first year associate could not gather in a day from a standing start. There is little commentary from the practitioners that are named as the authors that would be considered substantive advice from experienced arbitration counsel. I would have expected experienced Texas arbitration counsel commentators to at least be able to tell some good anecdotes, even if they were unable or unwilling to give advice about how to handle the various steps in arbitration proceedings.
While a novice or student faced with an arbitration might find a useful item or two about the arbitration process, experienced arbitration counsel would find this volume a waste of time. Further, there are simply better “road maps” and “guides” and even casebooks already available that do not insult the intelligence of the reader. It is almost as if this book was really the outline for a future book, and was shipped to the printer by mistake.
