The art of international arbitration is becoming a part of Miami’s legal fabric
Paris has one. So does Hong Kong, Dubai, New York, London, and many other global cities. Now, Miami has its own Arbitration Week, bringing together practitioners and clients to discuss best practices and to tout the area’s growing role as a global hub for settling disputes outside of traditional courts. Miami today ranks among the top two sites for international arbitration in the U.S., surveys show.
“Miami has arrived. We’re a player,” says Richard Lorenzo, chair of the Miami International Arbitration Society (MIAS), explaining how South Florida has achieved critical mass over the past two decades to now merit an Arbitration Week. “We need to have a seat at the adult table.”
Hundreds of lawyers from across the Americas, Europe, and beyond gathered November 8 through 15 for the inaugural week, attending diverse events on arbitration in offices and conference venues around the city. These included an International Chamber of Commerce conference and the MIAS-University of Miami School of Law summit on investor-state disputes in Latin America. One trend highlighted: More cases handled online, partly an outgrowth of travel limits during the pandemic. Also discussed: Legislation that may affect arbitration in Brazil, Panama, and Mexico.
The events highlighted Miami’s growing role as an arbitration hub, building on its reputation as a gateway to Latin America. As Latin America opened to foreign investment and increased trade through Miami, South Florida attorneys recognized that business leaders often preferred to resolve conflicts through arbitration.
In arbitration, the parties choose private individuals to hear their case and issue a decision, which is usually binding and final. Many consider the practice more neutral, cost-effective, and streamlined than traditional litigation, and Miami is a uniquely neutral location where no overseas party in a dispute has “home-court” advantage.
Lawyers and other arbitration advocates in 2008 created the advocacy group MIAS, which has helped secure changes in laws to make the area more “arbitration friendly.” For instance, Florida now allows overseas attorneys not in the Florida Bar to work on international arbitration cases in the state. And some court judges in Miami-Dade County have been trained to answer specific legal questions that might arise from arbitration cases, says Lorenzo, the Society chair and regional managing partner for the Americas in the Miami office of global law firm Hogan Lovells.
As arbitration in Miami took off, so did related businesses and programs. A decade ago, UM Law School launched its master’s degree program in international arbitration, one of the few worldwide. More law firms active in arbitration have also opened in the city, including King & Spalding, an Atlanta-based firm among sponsors of Miami Arbitration Week. Mediators who call South Florida home are also beginning to specialize in specific industries such as construction, aviation, and aerospace.
“We’ve been working on this for the past 20 years. Growth has been slow but steady, and Miami has earned its spot as a premier international arbitration hub,” Lorenzo told Global Miami Magazine. Indeed, Miami arbitration now extends beyond its core business of commercial contract disputes in Latin America. Miami lawyers increasingly represent not only investors but also governments, some from countries as distant as the Democratic Republic of Congo, says Luis O’Naghten, a society leader and partner in the Miami office of law firm Nelson Mullins. Local arbitrator Gary Birnberg says Miami should be “considered not just as a center for holding hearings but as a thought nexus as well, where the best minds in the profession come together to discuss what’s happening.”
