What is court-ordered arbitration? Arbitration is an informal trial held before a neutral court official called an arbitrator.To be eligible for court-ordered arbitration, a dispute must have been filed as a complaint in the North Carolina court system. Typically, an arbitration clause is located towards the end of a contract. If the contract does contain the clause you may proceed to step 2. Arbitration is a process that involves using a neutral third-party to review the evidence in a lemon law case. If you signed a binding arbitration agreement, then you must first try to resolve this with the arbitration.