Wayne E Gilbert

I was involved in a real-estate arbitration case that was arbitrated by Wayne E. Gilbert. We are extremely disappointed in Mr. Gilbert’s handling of our case. Although we received a small award, his lack of control over time during and after the case forced us to spend an unnecessarily large amoun...t on legal fees. As a result, our award doesn’t even come close to covering our costs involved. Firstly, Mr. Gilbert was not sensitive to time during the arbitration. The defendant’s lawyer was unprepared, and as a result a great deal time was wasted. At the end of the day, the defendant’s lawyer continuously checked his watch and purposefully requested that we resume the case another day. Mr. Gilbert obliged the request, allowing another full day of testimony to be scheduled. At no time during the case did Mr. Gilbert take control over the timing. Mr. Gilbert should know that lawyers and expert witnesses are being paid for their time, and that both parties involved are spending extra in legal fees by drawing the case out. The case was resumed three weeks later, which gave the unprepared defendant’s lawyer more opportunity to prepare before we had a chance to question the defendants. Our legal team spend a great deal of time prior to case organizing our evidence and witnesses so that we could effectively make use of our time with the expectation that we could present our material within a single day which is beneficial to keeping costs down for both parties (a reason we chose arbitration over court when signing our purchase agreement). After a second fully day of testimony, Mr. Gilbert requested that additional documents summarizing the case be prepared by each party. Mr. Gilbert took extensive notes during the case, so I was surprised that he made such a request. As a result, we (both parties likely) incurred additional attorney fees in the preparation of these documents. The documents were due three weeks from the final day of testimony, which again, extended the timeline of the case. Finally, we did not get a final decision within the 30 days expected. According to the rules of the organization that was used, the award is to be given 30 days from the date of the closing of the hearing. Given the stressful nature of the case, Mr. Gilbert demonstrated that he is insensitive to other people by operating on his own timeline, and not adhering to the time constraints imposed. The result of Mr. Gilbert’s lack of control over time resulted in us spending a large sum of money on legal fees, and prolonged the entire arbitration process. We spent much more on legal fees than we expected, and the award given to us didn’t even come close to covering those fees. From the date of our first hearing, to the time we received a decision was just short of 3 months. Each and every day of that period was emotionally stressful to our family, and the fact that Mr. Gilbert was not cognizant of these facts shows that he is not a suitable arbitrator.