Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2023 3:59 am
Junior associate here in a corporate practice (horrendous life choice) looking to break into international arbitration. I have a couple questions for any IA lawyers here. Don't know too many in real life but would love some info.
1. Does the field break down basically into commercial arbitration and investor-treaty arbitration?
2. I've heard that NY is mostly commercial arbitration and DC investor-treaty. Is this true?
3. Can you do IA in California, particularly SF?
Thank you!!
1. Yes, this is how it's often broken down. There is a third category, inter-State arbitrations. (I would include in this category ICJ work and cases before other international tribunals that are not, really, arbitrations.) If you're an international arbitration/disputes lawyer, you will probably do one, sometimes two, and rarely all three.
One way to think about the divide is the number of States involved: 0, 1, or 2(+). Another common-sense and perhaps more useful way to think about the distinction between the three is applicable law. Commercial arbitration -- importantly, international commercial arbitration -- involves the application of domestic law (often) foreign to both parties, think a Russian and a Spaniard with a dispute under New York law. Investment-treaty arbitration -- a bit of misnomer as well, because not all cases arise under treaties -- involves public international law (e.g., the BIT, ICSID Convention, law of state responsibility, etc.), a well-developed body of investor-State jurisprudence, and (this is often forgotten) generally some amount of public law within the host-State. Inter-State arbitration involves much broader principles of public international law than the other two, and draws more heavily from the ICJ and other international tribunals.
You can imagine that different lawyers and firms develop different specialties. But as I mentioned, most arbitration lawyers, especially associates, will do a mix, with the international-commercial being the most prevalent and inter-State being the least common. (In private practice, only a handful of firms worldwide have serious public international law practices.) As you get more senior, you get more specialized. Senior partners may be known for their ISDS work, or may have a frequent-flyer client with lots of international commercial disputes, etc.
What really matters, as a junior, is the firm/office. Some very strong international arbitration practices do far more commercial work than investor-State. Some do investor-State work, but predominantly (or exclusively) on the Claimant or Respondent side. Some offices do a mix of all kinds of work. It's not always obvious to those outside the field, and you need to do some homework to get a sense of how the market breaks down.
2. The NY/DC divide is probably true as a rule of thumb. There are practice groups in DC that focus exclusively on investor-State and practice groups in New York that are almost exclusively international commercial. But there are also several places in NY that do a lot of investor-State/public international law work; the inverse is true in DC. The NY/DC divide is, at best, a rough heuristic.
3. Can't speak to SF. I imagine it's even more international-commercial-arbitration oriented than New York. With respect to Sheppard Mullin -- not picking on them, just riffing off the previous post -- they have only acted in one ICSID case (as co-counsel with Hogan Lovells, Paris, a very serious arbitration group). This suggests to me that they are likely near exclusively focused on international-commercial disputes. In this regard, I note that a lot of firms list 'international arbitration' as a practice area on their website for marketing purposes, without actually being players in the space. Likewise there are some firms that 'do' international arbitration in the sense of, "We can enforce an arbitration award in the Northwestern District of Wyoming," or whatever, but do not actually act as arbitration counsel.
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