This case arises out of a dispute over attorney fees between Jeffrey Prince and his former counsel, Charles Lee Davis, Jr., which was submitted to binding arbitration before the State Bar Committee on the Arbitration of Attorney Fee Disputes.1 The arbitrators issued an award in favor of Davis, and Davis filed an application to confirm the arbitration award, which the superior court granted. On appeal, Prince contends that the superior court erred by not dismissing Davis’s application for failure to comply with the State Bar of Georgia’s arbitration enforcement procedures. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the superior court’s confirmation of the arbitration award. The record shows that Prince retained Davis to defend him in a civil lawsuit, and the parties entered into an engagement contract in which they agreed to submit any dispute over attorney fees to binding arbitration through the Arbitration of Fee Disputes “AFD” program of the State Bar of Georgia. See State Bar of Georgia Handbook, Part VI, Rules 6-101 et seq., pp. H-135 to H-138. When the parties were unable to agree on the amount of fees that were owed, Davis filed a petition for arbitration pursuant to the AFD program. Following an arbitration hearing, the State Bar arbitration committee awarded $10,000 in attorney fees to Davis. Davis then filed an application to confirm the arbitration award in the Superior Court of Cobb County under the Georgia Arbitration Code, OCGA § 9-9-1 et seq., which, along with a copy of the award, was served upon Prince in the same manner as a civil complaint. See OCGA § § 9-9-4 a 2, c 2; 9-9-12.
Prince answered and later filed a motion to dismiss. He argued that Davis’s motion to confirm should be dismissed because the arbitration award had not been filed or served in accordance with Rule 6-501 of the AFD program. That rule provides in relevant part: In cases where both parties agreed to be bound by the result of the arbitration and the award is not satisfied within thirty 30 days after the date of its mailing or other service by the Committee, either party may request the filing of the award on the records of the Superior Court of the county of residence of the party who has failed to satisfy the award. . . . The said request shall be in writing with a copy mailed to the opposing party, shall be accompanied by all filing fees, and shall designate the appropriate county in which the award is to be entered. The Committee shall then mail the original award to the Clerk of the Superior Court of the designated county who shall file it in the same manner as the commencement of a new civil action and shall serve a copy bearing the civil action number and judge assignment by certified mail on all parties, with notice that if no objection under oath, including facts indicating that the award was the result of accident, or mistake, or the fraud of some one or all of the arbitrators or parties, or is otherwise illegal, is filed within thirty 30 days, the award shall become final. Upon application of the party filing the award, the Clerk of the Superior Court shall issue a Writ of FiFa. The FiFa may then be entered on the general execution docket in any jurisdiction. . . . Rule 6-501. Prince emphasized that he never received notice of the 30-day deadline for objecting to the arbitration award as required by Rule 6-501, resulting in him failing to object to the award within that time period.
