§ 1281.9.Disclosures By Neutral Arbitrators

Before someone can serve as a neutral arbitrator, this section requires disclosure of anything that could make a reasonable person doubt their impartiality. That includes every ground that would disqualify a judge under § 170.1, along with whether the proposed arbitrator has, or recently discussed, prospective paid work as a dispute-resolution neutral; anything the Judicial Council's ethics standards separately require; and the names and outcomes of prior or pending cases where the arbitrator served as either a party-appointed arbitrator or a neutral arbitrator involving the same parties or lawyers, with individual names anonymized as "claimant" or "respondent" where appropriate to protect confidentiality.

The disclosure duty also reaches any attorney-client relationship the arbitrator has had with a party or a party's lawyer, and any significant professional or personal relationship involving the arbitrator, the arbitrator's spouse, or a minor child living in the household. A 2025 addition brings consumer arbitration solicitations into the disclosure net too -- if the private arbitration company solicited a party or the party's lawyer within the past two years, that has to come out, unless the arbitration involves a securities self-regulatory organization.

All of this has to reach every party in writing within 10 calendar days of the notice proposing the arbitrator's nomination or appointment. The section defines its own terms carefully: "lawyer for a party" reaches associated lawyers at the same firm; "prior cases" means cases with an award within the preceding five years; collective-bargaining arbitrations are excluded from the whole section; and "solicitation" is defined broadly enough to include private pitches and negotiations for future business, while excluding general public advertising, standard educational materials, open seminars, and simple responses to cost or procedure inquiries.