Podcasting Arbitration: Two Years with the ‘Arbitration Station’

Abstract

Before the turn of the century, practitioners in our community only engaged with one another by attending international conferences or passively responding to academic publications. However, in the age of LinkedIn and affordable travel, we can now more easily connect, share, compare and discuss. The field of international arbitration transitioned from an amalgamation of pockets of domestic arbitration cultures into a globalized field. It became more the rule, rather than the exception, to meet a Viennese professional at a conference in Buenos Aires, who is licensed in Australia, but works for a law firm in Seoul.
After a few years in this field, we noticed that arbitration practitioners are a special breed of person. They are intellectual, yet uncharacteristically social. If the legal profession were the deep blue sea, arbitration practitioners would be dolphins. They spend most of their time and energy seeking out relationships, and their standing in society is determined by the interactions they have with others. 
We decided to capitalize on an industry filled with type-A personalities who want to know the most and be known by most. Adapting to the social media generation, we realized that there was (already) an app for that. The only medium untouched by our industry was podcasting. After a quick search, we realized that no current podcast exclusively discussed issues of arbitration. After the forefather of arbitration podcasting, Michael McIlwrath, ended his podcast for the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR Institute) in 2011, there was a void to fill. Enter: The ‘Arbitration Station’.