Prof. Paulsson, who holds the Michael Klein Distinguished Chair at Miami Law and heads the school's LL.M. Specialization in International Arbitration, is ranked second in the publication's list, compiled annually from a survey of peers and just released. His colleague Albert Jan van den Berg, who serves each year as Visiting International Professor at Miami Law, is in first place.
"Our arbitration faculty is simply the best in the world," Miami Law Dean Patricia D. White said after hearing news of the rankings.
At Miami Law, Prof. Paulsson's institute provides an enhanced JD curriculum, research facilities, an LLM degree, training and CLE courses in international arbitration. In addition, he heads the international arbitration practice of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, the top-ranked firm in the survey. He has acted as counsel or arbitrator in more than 500 arbitrations in Europe, Asia, the United States and Africa, and in ad hoc arbitrations before tribunals such as the International Court of Justice. He was ad hoc arbitrator at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Nagano and Sydney.
Prof. van den Berg, author of the acknowledged standard text on the 1958 New York Convention, teaches a course on that topic every year at Miami Law. He is the Arbitration Chair at Erasmus University Rotterdam and the immediate past president of the Netherlands Arbitration Institute. Prof. van den Berg, a Dutchman who is a partner in Hanotiau & van den Berg in Brussels, was given the Arbitration Lawyer of the Year Award by The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers this year and in 2006.
The publication says that Prof. van den Berg, the most highly nominated individual in the field, is "quite clearly one of the best in the business" in the eyes of his colleagues. It says also that Prof. Paulsson "stands alone at the head of the practice worldwide."
The two men are ranked atop a list of 531 arbitrators from around the world. Last year, Prof. Paulsson was in third place on the list, and Prof. van den Berg in fourth.
"We are very proud of our faculty," said Jessica Carvalho Morris, director of Miami Law's International Graduate Law Programs. "It is terrific to have the world recognize their caliber as practicioners, and consequently of our program."
Also commended by Who's Who are Lucy Reed, a Miami Law visiting professor and co-head of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's global international arbitration group, who is described as "one of the premier arbitrators in the United States," and Carolyn B. Lamm, who graduated from Miami Law in 1973 and addressed this year's graduating class in May. The former president of the American Bar Association and a partner at White & Case LLP in Washington, Lamm has "absolutely fantastic" skills in arbitration, according to the Who's Who summary.
Nominees were selected, the publication said, after "comprehensive, independent survey work with both general counsel and commercial arbitration experts in private practice worldwide."
Miami Law Professors Ranked Top Two Commercial Arbitrators in the World
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