Any court forces an adversarial resolution: the parts have failed to come to an understanding so they are investing in a legal battle from which the loser will come out bruised, having wasted money, time, prestige etc. A strongly negative-sum game.

The ease of which you can go to court can motivate parties to use it as a strategic threat even if they feel they don't have a particularly strong case, and the openness of the court system can make that small chance of success a strong threat against a public person or company.

So arbitration, by definition, can find a mutually acceptable solution with a zero sum, as opposed to the negative sum of a legal war. Society stands to gain if arbitration works - but not in cases such as these, were forced arbitration is employed as a stopgap against any and all claims.

It's expensive for businesses because they tend to find in favour of the consumer, whereas with forced arbitration the business can pick the most biased arbitrator to rule in their favour.

Well, okay. Right. I agree. I just don't want people reinforcing the meme that "justice is always slow and expensive and that's why businesses want arbitration" when the real reason is "courts are too fair and that's why businesses want arbitration". The accessibility, fairness, speed and low cost of small claims courts to poor individual litigants is a bug, not a feature, from the perspective of the US's larger corporations.

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From what it seems like, most large companies tend to use the same few arbitration firms. JAMS and AAA come up often in the contracts I've read. How often does this "arbitrator shopping" actually happen? It's a complaint I hear often, but little in the way of data to support it.

I have seen data to suggest that arbitrators rule often in the favor of the companies, but that could be a result of more people raising bullshit claims since it's significantly easier to do so.

>om what it seems like, most large companies tend to use the same few arbitration firms

Maybe the other arbitrators went out of business because they ruled on the consumer side.

See: survivorship bias.

I'd love to see the data either way. "Arbitration is popular because it always screws the customer!" is a wonderful emotionally-evocative talking point, but that seems way too simplistic and pithy for me.

Arbitrators, like jurors, tend to split the baby if there is a halfway decent rationalization for doing so.

It is if you have to pay a lawyer to represent you. Between responding and showing up in court it's probably several thousand dollars in billable hours.

You can't have a attorney represent you in small claim court.

That depends on the state. Even if it's not a lawyer, you still have to send someone. Between salary costs and travel it's still in the thousands.