A second "team" would be good, but team is the operant word. I think a second team might develop organically if we could actually get 12 folks on board who were active. Our biggest problem is that the cases are often very complicated, requiring review of voluminous evidence, most of it poorly presented. Good presentation would highlight the truly egregious offenses which a decision can be readily based on. (But then one must spend time looking at the context -- what everyone else was doing -- in order to determine whether or not the "offender" is actually the one causing the trouble).
Perhaps cases could be decided only by the arbitrators who "sign on" to be part of that particular case. That would then lessen the problem of waiting around for those whose input in necessary but don't have time or energy to review the evidence or vote on the proposals. One problem is that if they are not satisfied with what is being proposed is that they have to make their own proposals (and justify them with cites to specific evidence) but that is a skill which takes some practice. This can seem discouraging and frustrating at first. You just have to dive in and start doing it.
Fred
On Jul 11, 2005, at 11:54 PM, Jon wrote:
The idea of having 24 arbitrators of whom only 7 hear each case is designed to lighten the workload and mean not all active arbitrators have to wade through every single case. I'd be interested to hear from current arbitrators as to whether lessening their individual load in such a way would interest them. (Of course, it is predicated on being able to find 24 willing volunteers!)