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Full-Text Articles in Law

From Court-Surrogate To Regulatory Tool: Re-Framing The Empirical Study Of Employment Arbitration, W. Mark C. Weidemaier Jul 2008

From Court-Surrogate To Regulatory Tool: Re-Framing The Empirical Study Of Employment Arbitration, W. Mark C. Weidemaier

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A growing body of empirical research explores the use of arbitration to resolve employment disputes, typically by comparing arbitration to litigation using relatively traditional outcome measures: who wins, how much, and how quickly. On the whole, this research suggests that employees fare reasonably well in arbitration. Yet there remain sizeable gaps in our knowledge. This Article explores these gaps with two goals in mind. The first and narrower goal is to explain why it remains exceedingly difficult to assess the relative fairness of arbitration and litigation. The outcome research does not account for a variety of 'filtering" mechanisms that influence …


Arbitration Costs And Forum Accessibility: Empirical Evidence, Christopher R. Drahozal Jul 2008

Arbitration Costs And Forum Accessibility: Empirical Evidence, Christopher R. Drahozal

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In this Article, written for this symposium issue on "Empirical Studies of Mandatory Arbitration," I examine the available empirical evidence on these two questions. I take "mandatory arbitration" to refer to pre-dispute arbitration clauses in consumer and employment (and maybe franchise) contracts. Accordingly, I limit my consideration of the empirical evidence to those types of contracts. I do not discuss empirical studies of international arbitrations, which almost always arise out of agreements between commercial entities. Nor do I discuss empirical studies of court-annexed arbitrations, which may not derive from party agreement and do not ordinarily proceed to a binding award.


Arbitration's Summer Soldiers: An Empirical Study Of Arbitration Clauses In Consumer And Nonconsumer Contracts, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller, Emily Sherwin Jul 2008

Arbitration's Summer Soldiers: An Empirical Study Of Arbitration Clauses In Consumer And Nonconsumer Contracts, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller, Emily Sherwin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

We provide the first study of varying use of arbitration clauses across contracts within the same firms. Using a sample of 26 consumer contracts and 164 nonconsumer contracts from large public corporations, we compared the use of arbitration clauses in firms' consumer and nonconsumer contracts. Over three-quarters of the consumer agreements provided for mandatory arbitration but less than 10% of the firms' material nonconsumer, nonemployment contracts included arbitration clauses. The absence of arbitration provisions in the vast majority of material contracts suggests that, ex ante, many firms value, even prefer, litigation over arbitration to resolve disputes with peers. Our data …


How Bad Are Mandatory Arbitration Terms?, Omri Ben-Shahar Jul 2008

How Bad Are Mandatory Arbitration Terms?, Omri Ben-Shahar

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This symposium was presented in the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Contracts Section of the American Association of Law Schools. Indeed, studying the unconscionability of arbitration terms has become a standard feature of first-year contracts courses. This is perhaps one of the hotter topics in today's contract law and policy. Contractual rights, as they are enforced by contract law, might have substantially different values depending on the venue through which they can be vindicated. It is hard to predict how these values differ, but hopefully this symposium will inform some of these predictions.


Arbitration And Article Iii, Peter B. Rutledge May 2008

Arbitration And Article Iii, Peter B. Rutledge

Vanderbilt Law Review

Arbitration implicates serious constitutional concerns that have not received adequate attention in case law or commentary. Recent litigation in the D.C. Circuit over the constitutionality of the North American Free Trade Agreement ("NAFTA") represents the most recent, high-profile example. A centerpiece of NAFTA and its implementing legislation is an arbitration mechanism that divests Article III courts of virtually all jurisdiction over countervailing duty and anti-dumping claims and invests that authority in panels of Associate Professor of Law, Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America. Arbitration implicates serious constitutional concerns that have not received adequate attention in case law or …


Revolution In Law Through Arbitration, The Eighty-Fourth Cleveland-Marshall Fund Visiting Scholar Lecture , Thomas E. Carbonneau Jan 2008

Revolution In Law Through Arbitration, The Eighty-Fourth Cleveland-Marshall Fund Visiting Scholar Lecture , Thomas E. Carbonneau

Cleveland State Law Review

My subject is arbitration. I explore how its re-emergence during the last forty years has revolutionized the thinking about, and the practice of, law. The development of a "strong federal policy favoring arbitration" cast aside traditional acceptations about law and adjudication. The rule of law-the human civilization associated with law and the legal process-has been profoundly, perhaps irretrievably, altered by the rise of arbitration. The landmark cases in labor and employment arbitration-Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Company (the "old time religion") and Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corporation (the "new age"thinking)-attest to the enormous distance that separates past and present concepts of legal …


Expanding The Power Of U.S. Courts In Private International Arbitration - Moderation Loses To An Extreme, Amy Moore Jan 2008

Expanding The Power Of U.S. Courts In Private International Arbitration - Moderation Loses To An Extreme, Amy Moore

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Since its inception, 28 U.S.C. § 17822 has been the subject of revisions, amendments, and much debate. This history is symptomatic of the evolving nature of United States presence in the international legal and business world; however, the statutory changes have not always been clear in purpose or application. In 2004, the Supreme Court granted certiorari for Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., in order to solidify interpretation of § 1782's latest rendition, a 1964 congressional revision. Unfortunately, in expanding the accepted scope of § 1782, the Court created new ambiguity, especially in how the statute should relate to …


Evolving Issues In Reinsurance Disputes: The Power Of Arbitrators, Robert W. Diubaldo Jan 2008

Evolving Issues In Reinsurance Disputes: The Power Of Arbitrators, Robert W. Diubaldo

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article examines emerging areas of the law governing the following procedural powers of arbitrators that impact reinsurance arbitrations, as well as other commercial disputes: (i) consolidation; (ii) non-party discovery; (iii) confidentiality; (iv) summary adjudication; and (v) the enforceability of a hold harmless agreement. Inconsistency in judicial interpretation of arbitral powers significantly impacts the cost-effectiveness and overall efficiency of arbitration -- reasons the parties seek to arbitrate their commercial disputes in the first place.