Arbitration management support service Arbitra has added four new members, having almost doubled its total membership to 35 since its launch a year ago.

The new members include Adrian Cole, Dmitri Evseev, Dana MacGrath and Eun Young Park, all previously partners at major international law firms including King & Spalding, Arnold & Porter, Sidley Austin and Kim & Chang.

Owen Lawrence, chief executive of Arbitra, said the four new members “set the seal on a year in which our membership has doubled, thanks to market interest in our offering, helping us to reshape the way international arbitrators administer their practices and how law firms strategically find and appoint the right neutral".

Cole has been an independent since leaving King & Spalding in January last year and is recognised as the ‘go-to’ arbitrator in the Middle East for construction and engineering disputes. He headed King & Spalding’s disputes practice in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, having previously been a partner at Simmons & Simmons. 

Evseev left Arnold & Porter last month after more than 15 years at the firm in London to become an independent arbitrator. He previously had stints at Winston & Strawn, White & Case and WilmerHale, all in the US. He specialises in investor-state and commercial arbitration disputes.

New York-based MacGrath has been an independent since leaving her role as an investment manager and in-house legal counsel at litigation funder Omni Bridgeway in August last year. She was previously a partner at Sidley Austin and a counsel at Allen & Overy and O’Melveny & Myers. Her arbitral experience spans a range of industries including oil and gas, construction, infrastructure and telecoms, among others.

Like Evseev, Park left his firm last month to become an independent arbitrator. He spent more than 25 years at Kim & Chang in Seoul, co-chairing its international arbitration and litigation group. He specialises in commercial and investment treaty arbitration. 

Lawrence said: “We work with [our members] to enable them to focus on what they do best – resolving disputes – while we do the rest. That includes helping law firms and their clients select the individual best able to resolve their disputes, and so find the most suitable tribunal from a diverse stable.”