How to Prepare Your Team for an Arbitration-Sensitive Dispute

When a commercial dispute escalates towards formal arbitration, the organisation's legal team takes the lead. That is appropriate. But the outcome of arbitration is not determined solely by legal strategy — it is also significantly influenced by how well the organisation itself is prepared: how its documents are organised, how its people communicate during the dispute period, how leadership understands the process, and how internal operations are managed while the matter is live.

This article focuses on the internal preparation that organisations can and should undertake once it becomes clear that a matter is heading towards arbitration.

Start with a clear internal understanding of the dispute

One of the most consistent patterns in organisations managing their first significant arbitration is that different people inside the organisation have different understandings of what the dispute is actually about. The legal team has a precise view. The commercial team has a different one. Leadership has a third. These divergences are not unusual — disputes are complex — but they create problems when internal witnesses need to give consistent accounts, when documents need to be located and organised, and when leadership needs to make informed decisions about settlement.

The first step in internal preparation is to establish a shared internal understanding of the key issues — not in legal detail, but in plain terms that allow the relevant personnel to work coherently. This is not a task for legal counsel to perform; it is an internal management function.

Document discipline from the moment a dispute becomes foreseeable

Once it is reasonably foreseeable that a dispute may result in formal proceedings, organisations have obligations regarding the preservation of relevant documents. Beyond the legal obligation, practical document discipline becomes operationally critical.

Organisations should:

• Establish a clear protocol for how documents related to the dispute are identified, preserved, and made accessible to legal counsel
• Identify the key custodians — the people whose files, emails, and records are most relevant — and ensure their document environments are appropriately managed
• Create a working chronology of the key events and documents as early as possible. This is one of the most time-consuming tasks in arbitration preparation, and the earlier it begins the more accurate and useful it will be
• Audit for gaps — documents that should exist but cannot be found are a significant problem. Knowing about gaps early allows legal counsel to address them strategically rather than discovering them under pressure

Communication protocols during the dispute period

One of the most significant sources of problems in arbitration proceedings is internal communications created after the dispute arose. Emails that express frustration, make admissions, speculate about outcomes, or contradict the organisation's formal position can become damaging evidence. This does not mean that internal communication should cease — that is neither practical nor appropriate — but it does mean that the people involved in or aware of the dispute need clear guidance about how to communicate during this period.

Practically, this means briefing key personnel on what to avoid in written communication, how to escalate questions about the dispute through appropriate channels, and what to do if they are contacted by the other party or their representatives.

Preparing internal personnel who may participate in proceedings

Some internal personnel will be involved in the proceedings in a formal capacity — as witnesses, as persons who provide instructions to counsel, or as decision-makers who attend hearings. None of these roles is intuitive, particularly for people who have not been through an arbitration before.

Preparation should include a clear explanation of the hearing process: what the format is, what the sequence of events will be, what is expected of personnel who attend, and what the likely timelines are. This preparation is not witness coaching — that is counsel's role — it is basic operational readiness that allows people to perform their functions without unnecessary anxiety or confusion.

Executive alignment throughout the process

Arbitrations can run for months or years. During that period, leadership needs to remain meaningfully engaged — not overwhelmed with procedural detail, but genuinely informed at a level that allows sound decisions to be made about settlement, escalation, resource allocation, and risk management.

Establishing a regular, structured briefing cadence for leadership is an underappreciated element of arbitration management. The briefings should be brief, focused on decisions and developments that require leadership attention, and calibrated to the stage the matter has reached.

ResolveX Advisory supports organisations at each of these stages — providing structured advisory input that allows internal teams to prepare effectively and legal counsel to focus on what they do best.