Milder

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Allegations of Plaintiff’s Operative Complaint In his operative second amended complaint, plaintiff alleges attorney Shawn Holley (Holley) and her law firm, Kinsella Weitzman Iser Krump & Aldisert (KWIKA) represented him in a criminal matter. Plaintiff executed a retainer agreement with a procedure for resolving disputes. As pertinent here, the retainer agreement required that all disputes be resolved by submission to binding arbitration, with the prevailing party to recover attorney fees. Plaintiff initiated arbitration against Holley and KWIKA after they moved to be relieved as plaintiff’s counsel in the criminal matter. The matter was submitted to ADR Services for arbitration. Before an arbitrator was appointed, plaintiff’s attorney informed ADR Services and counsel for Holley and KWIKA “that [he] would be filing a civil action and requested

2 ADR Services to stay the arbitration proceedings pending the outcome of that Superior Court proceeding.” Holley and KWIKA objected, and “the ADR Services case manager . . . informed all parties that ‘[ADR Services] cannot make any unilateral decisions. To move forward, we need agreement from all parties.’”…