ethos
Professor Emmert is available to support commercial entities and/or their legal counsel in the drafting stages of complex international business transactions. Based on his experience, he is often able to suggest more straightforward and fairer agreements that are less prone to result in disputes during and after implementation. Contracts overseen by Professor Emmert also tend to have better dispute settlement provisions that allow for faster and more efficient and more satisfying resolution, if a dispute should arise between the parties.
Whether or not Professor Emmert was involved at the drafting stages, parties can ask for his support as counsel once a dispute has arisen and transnational litigation or arbitration may become inevitable. In many cases, Professor Emmert was able to defuse an antagonistic situation and promote a settlement that allowed the parties to resume mutually beneficial commercial relations.
If Professor Emmert does not have a prior history as partisan counsel in a given case, commercial entities and/or their legal counsel can also nominate Professor Emmert as a sole arbitrator or as a member of an arbitral tribunal. His status as Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators vouches for his impeccable credentials. Another distinction of Professor Emmert is his ability to persuade disputing parties to return to the negotiating table and find a solution that avoids or limits the need for arbitration and find a mutually acceptable settlement instead. By looking first and foremost after the interest of the parties to avoid costly legal battles and, instead, get back to business, Professor Emmert was responsible, in many cases, for significant savings in time, money, reputation, and stress. However, if needed, in particular if one side is not playing ball and trying to use or abuse the process to unfair advantage, Professor Emmert also has a reputation of being tough and making sure that contractual promises and legal obligations will be enforced.
terms of engagement
As an arbitrator, Professor Emmert can serve in an institutional setting and will generally charge an honorarium in the medium range of the institutional scales.
Parties seeking to appoint Professor Emmert ad hoc as a sole or presiding arbitrator or as a member of an arbitral tribunal should get in touch about the financial arrangements.
With regard to incompatibilities or conflicts of interest, parties should be advised that Professor Emmert applies the traffic light system of the 2004 IBA Guidelines on Conflict of Interest in International Arbitration with the following modification: Professor Emmert will treat both the non-waivable and the waivable red list items as non-waivable, the disclosure requirement under the orange list as requiring a waiver, and the green list items as requiring disclosure.
Parties wishing to interview Professor Emmert before nominating him as an arbitrator can do so online or at his office in Indianapolis. Professor Emmert does not travel for such interviews and does not conduct them at a social setting, regardless of who pays for the occasion.
When approached to become a partisan consultant, Professor Emmert will generally conduct a conflict of interest analysis like any commercial lawyer would.
In addition to his honorarium, Professor Emmert charges mutually agreeable rates for expenses. On trips of two hours or more, Professor Emmert flies business class.
contact information
Prof. Dr. Frank Emmert, LL.M., FCIArb
John S. Grimes Professor of Law & Director of the Center for Int'l and Comparative Law
Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
Inlow Hall 335, 530 West New York Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
femmert@iupui.edu, Tel. +1 317 278 7918, Fax +1 317 278 3326
President & CEO, International Smart Mediation and Arbitration Institute, Indianapolis
8409 Bay Colony Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46234
frank.emmert@smartarb.org, frank.emmert@gmail.com, Tel. +1 317 292 9738 or +1 317 410 8072