AAA Standard Arbitration Clause redraft

I am linking here to a blog post from a practitioner fed up with standard clauses and standard problems.  As he writes:

Today’s issue of the New York Law Journal contains my article “The AAA Standard Arbitration Clause: Room for Improvement.” Click here to go to a pdf copy. (It’s also available here if you subscribe to the New York Law Journal.)

It was fun to write, and here’s why:

  • I got to revisit a topic, arising out of or relating to, that I’ve worried at inconclusively in several blog posts.
  • The provision in question raises a great categories-of-contract-language issue. Regular readers will know that I regard mastery of categories of contract language to be the foundation of controlled drafting.
  • And I was able harbor the illusion that I was somehow sticking it to The Man.
  • I was able to demonstrate that even if in your review of contract language you’re limited to examining how you say something, not what you say, you can still make drastic improvements.

 Ken Adams argues that his clause, reprinted below, is in actual English and would be much easier to understand.  What do you think?

As the exclusive means of initiating adversarial proceedings to resolve any dispute arising out of this agreement [with general or specific language to follow], a party may demand that any such dispute be resolved by arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association in accordance with its commercial arbitration rules, and each party hereby consents to any such dispute being so resolved. Judgment on any award rendered in any such arbitration may be entered in any court having jurisdiction.

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