In disputes other than breach of a promise to pay money or deliver a stone, which are dealt with in the bylaws or according to well-established custom, arbitrators' verdicts may be more accurate and predictable than those of a court since arbitrators possess industry expertise and are permitted to consider information that would be excluded in court under the rules of evidence. If a diamond dispute were decided by a court, the application of industry custom would be highly unpredictable: unlike a DDC arbitrator, who can apply his own knowledge of industry custom, a judge would have to determine the content of customary norms from the conflicting testimony of expert witnesses. The uncertainty introduced by a judge's need to resolve conflicting testimony would greatly reduce the expected benefit to the promisee of having a legally enforceable contract.

XREF: Relates to private-ordering and dispute-resolution literature; the arbitrator's informational advantage parallels theories of specialized adjudication.

Lisa Bernestein, Opting out of the Legal Sys…, loc. 236