The Attorney Employment Act of 2009, Part 72

I've only briefly mentioned this, but in case you didn't know, I am an arbitrator. Specifically, I am qualified to arbitrate property valuation disputes for appraisal districts in the state of Texas. This qualification comes courtesy of my real estate experience along with training in alternative dispute resolution, allowing me to be registered with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Property Tax Division. If a property owner and an appraisal district can't agree on the value of a property for tax purposes, eventually the case can get appealed to binding arbitration. Each case presents a side and proposes a value, and the arbitrator decides what the value is. It can be one party's number or the other party's number, or a number in between.

As an aside, when I teach real estate principles, one of the earliest classes is the semester involves the criteria for getting a real estate license, along with exemptions to licensing. Makes sense, right? Well, one of the exemptions is that if you're a licensed attorney, you don't need a real estate license to practice real estate. At that point, I like to joke that since most lawmakers are lawyers, they like to write in opportunities for their future employment. Seriously, the law is littered with exemptions for attorneys. I guess the underlying assumption is that attorneys know everything. Must be one of the benefits of a Socratic education.

This is partly a snarky little joke, but mostly true, because if you knew the number of mediation rosters where the only requirement was "be a licensed attorney", you'd be sick. You'd especially be sick if you got a master's degree in dispute resolution from Pepperdine, and then were told you couldn't be a mediator in certain states or for certain courts because you weren't an attorney. Fortunately that ain't me. I got my master's degree in a practical field :)

Back to the subject at hand. I recently decided to check on the Texas legislature's web site to see if any changes have been made to the enabling legislation that started this arbitration process. The session is wrapping up, so I thought this was as good a time as any to check. I remembered that during the last legislative session there was an attempt to add some continuing education requirements to those wishing to stay on the arbitrator roster, which I wholeheartedly approve of.

After some searching, I managed to figure out that yes, a bill had been passed that amended this section of the tax code. Notable changes made:

1. CPAs can now be arbitrators (previously you needed a real estate license or appraiser's license to be an arbitrator)
2. Continuing education requirement (good, good)
3. Established a minimum experience requirement for CPAs, real estate licensees, or appraisers wishing to be on the roster (good idea, plus it's not so lengthy of an experience requirement that I'd be knocked off, so OK)
4. ATTORNEYS CAN NOW BE ARBITRATORS

You can guess which change caught my eye.

Not only can attorneys now be registered as arbitrators for these kinds of disputes, they don't have to have any experience or training in dispute resolution, they don't have to have any real estate experience, and they don't have a minimum experience requirement like CPAs or real estate professionals.

Great. The Attorney Employment Act strikes again.

What's the practical impact of this change on me? Probably not good, since attorneys who want to bolster their "I can be a judge too" resume can now sign up for the arbitrator roster and gum up the works. Sure, in 2012 they'll have to take some continuing education, but they have to do that anyways for their law license, and it's not too hard to find continuing legal hours that cover arbitration. Meanwhile, right now I can't find an arbitration continuing education class that would count towards my real estate license if I needed to. (I guess this legislation will create a market for it, so that's not a bad thing.)

As far as case volume, I've been on the roster for a couple of years, have been assigned 4 cases, and only one made it to the hearing stage. Double or triple the number of arbitrators on the roster, and that doesn't bode well for anyone's case volume.

Let's face it. Real estate professionals are used to determining the value of real estate. Attorneys, by and large, are not. At the end of the day, that's what these hearings are about: determining value. Who's going to do a better job?

Oh wait, I forgot. Once you have a J.D. you're an expert on everything. My bad.

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