International Arbitration in Florida

The Supreme Court of Florida last week approved a Florida Bar board certification specialist (BCS) program for international litigators and arbitrators due to Florida increasingly becoming an international arbitration hub. In a decade-long effort by the International Law Section to create a board certification program, international litigators and arbitrators now have a novel certification helping to position particularly Miami as an attractive place for foreign companies to resolve their disputes. To meet the requirements for board certification, practitioners will have to have a significant amount of experience and will have to submit references of arbitrators, judges and opposing counsel. Practitioners also will need to show that they have completed a certain number of hours of continuing legal education in the particular area. Finally, practitioners will have to take a lengthy exam. Another rules decision now allows foreign attorneys to work as authorized in-house counsel for companies in the state. Previously, only American attorneys could be in-house counsel, but companies often have foreign lawyers in-house if they are doing lots of foreign business. Reportedly, those attorneys would have run the risk of being subject to Florida Bar prosecutions for practicing law without a license. Communications between these in-house foreign attorneys and their companies in the event of litigation are also protected under the change when opposing counsel seek such communications, enabling businesses to hire the people they desire to advise them. As a sidebar, I recently attended our annual retreat of the Executive Council of our Florida Bar ADR Section where we discussed board certification for arbitrators and mediators by the bar for civil cases in the state. It was decided the section would discontinue pursuing such a specialization certification from the state bar in these forms of ADR, as it does not actually constitute the practice of law. Regardless, there are already a non-BCS certification for mediators and a qualification for domestic arbitrators by The Supreme Court of Florida. That court will soon decide if court connected cases require certified mediators be assigned. Stay tuned! See full news story here-- http://bit.ly/2zPfq1H and Supreme Court of Florida case In re: Amendments to the Rules Regulating the Florida Bar (Biennial Petition) SC16-1961 here-- http://bit.ly/2j0klVr