Make the role visible from the outset
The parties should understand who the proposed secretary is, what that person will do and the basis on which the work will be paid for. A description such as “administrative assistance” is not very useful if it leaves everyone with a different understanding of the actual tasks.
The starting point is the applicable institutional framework, any party agreement and the tribunal’s proposed arrangements. Those should be checked before work begins. A transparent appointment process makes later misunderstandings less likely.
Separate preparation from decision-making
Organising a hearing bundle, maintaining a procedural calendar and assembling references can support the tribunal’s work. Deciding whether a witness is credible, which legal argument succeeds or how much compensation should be awarded raises a different issue.
The tribunal must remain responsible for the judgment the parties appointed it to exercise. Responsibility is not preserved merely because an arbitrator signs the final document. The arbitrators need to understand, consider and decide the issues themselves.
The practical test is to look at the task, rather than its label. Work described as “research” may still frame the answer to a contested issue. Work described as “drafting” may range from formatting agreed text to supplying substantive reasoning. Those differences deserve explicit attention.
Write down the boundaries
A short task description can prevent a great deal of confusion. It should identify permitted work, supervision, confidentiality and how any change of role will be addressed.
Parties also need to understand remuneration. Check whether the applicable framework regulates the secretary’s fees separately, requires agreement or treats some work as part of the tribunal’s own administrative responsibility. Avoid assuming that practices under one institution apply unchanged under another.
When the role expands during a long arbitration, return to the agreed boundaries. A decision to use assistance for one task is not an unlimited instruction to undertake whatever later becomes convenient.
The link with AI assistance
The same underlying concern appears in discussions of AI: assistance can become influential before anyone describes it as decision-making. A summary can omit a qualification. A research note can give an issue a particular frame. A draft can make one explanation feel like the obvious answer.
This is an analogy about responsibility, not a claim that a human secretary and a software tool are legally identical. Both situations require the tribunal to understand the assistance it receives and to retain control of its reasoning.
For a new practitioner, the useful habit is to ask a concrete question: what has the assistant been asked to do, and what must the arbitrator still decide? That is more revealing than a broad assurance that the tribunal remains “in charge”.
