[PaulHoule]

Small Claims Court is definitely worth it if Adobe didn't make you sign something forcing you to use arbitration. If they did it is still worth going through arbitration because it is often cheaper for them to give you redress than go through the process.

[chazzyluc]

I was curious if this was true and looked it up. According to the American Arbitration Association rules section R-9:

Small Claims Option for the Parties If a party’s claim is within the jurisdiction of a small claims court, either party may choose to take the claim to that court instead of arbitration as follows: (a) The parties may take their claims to small claims court without first filing with the AAA.

I am very much not a lawyer and have zero experience with arbitration but that seems pretty strait forward unless I am missing something?

https://www.adr.org/sites/default/files/Consumer_Rules_Web_2...

[PaulHoule]

What I'd say is this.

Trial lawyers like to say that arbitration is unfair and they have a point, but I've heard many stories of people who've gone to arbitration and gotten a fair settlement. Here is one I found on HN

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31567673

Very few people go through the process, but the fact is that if you have a $2000 claim, Adobe can spend a lot more than that trying to beat the claim through arbitration and still wind up being liable. It makes sense for them to cut you a check and make the whole thing go away... And often it is faster to go through arbitration than the small claims court.

So if you have an arbitration clause in your contract you should start the process.

If you don't you should go to small claims court which has the feature that they aren't allowed to send a lawyer... They have to send somebody who isn't a lawyer and it is an expensive hassle for them that can easily go wrong.

Either way the practice of civil law is about intimidation. They are hoping you are intimidated enough by the process that you won't even try to get justice but if you do go through with it there is a good chance they will roll over because fighting a case can be a nightmare.

---

I am by no means an expert but I was a volunteer years ago at a community mediation center that mostly handled parenting plan cases. We were highly successful with those and took a load off the family court, the parties were usually happier and more compliant with agreements they made themselves than they were with decisions made by a court.

I've never been involved with corporate cases and my experience with commercial dispute (between business owners, landlords and tenants, etc.) were less successful. I think the approach we used was not so good for those because I think we had a lot of cases where party A thinks party B owes them $X and party B thinks A owns them $Y and if you itemized those claims you would get some number in the middle... Mediators at our center weren't allowed to do that so most of those cases went to court despite those efforts.

The experience has still made me a believer in mediation.