Power

Scenario: Martha McLellan wishes to be awarded $64,000 in damages because her twin sister used Martha's modified hair dryer, without permission, to win the State Butter Sculpting Championship. Will she be awarded the money, or will she leave your courtroom with nothing but whatever's left of her dignity? In the words of Captain Planet, "the power is yours."

As an arbitrator, you have the power to award or deny life-changing sums of money. This means often giving one party one of the best days of their life, and the other party one of their worst. These decisions can have an incredibly deep impact on the people and companies they affect. You'll build and break dreams, give or deny justice, and maybe even decide which of two billion-dollar companies will lose 0.003% of their quarterly profits this year over a low-level trademark dispute.

Still, like most power, the arbitrator's is far from unilateral. Remember, these clients are choosing to use your judgment; it's not like you can just walk into Burger King's corporate headquarters and proclaim that they owe half of their profits to your BFF Thomas. Well, we suppose you could do that, but you'll probably be seeing office security personnel long before you see that check.