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Foreword: Achieving Access To Justice Through Adr: Fact Or Fiction?, Jacqueline Nolan-Haley May 2020

Foreword: Achieving Access To Justice Through Adr: Fact Or Fiction?, Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Fordham Law Review

This Symposium will offer a critical analysis of ADR’s access to justice claims and consider the extent to which they should be more modest. An outstanding group of scholars have addressed this question in a variety of contexts, including procedural and substantive justice; restorative justice; arbitration; mediation; online dispute resolution (ODR); and international, comparative, and cross-cultural perspectives.


Online Resources And Family Cases: Access To Justice In Implementation Of A Plan, Kristen M. Blankley May 2020

Online Resources And Family Cases: Access To Justice In Implementation Of A Plan, Kristen M. Blankley

Fordham Law Review

This Article discusses access to justice in the implementation of orders in family cases. Parenting, financial, and other types of family court orders may last up to eighteen or twenty-one years in the case of minor children or longer in the case of protected adults. In the case of financial obligations, these orders set forth ongoing requirements to make monthly payments (such as child support, alimony, and medical expense reimbursements) and to maintain other financial obligations (such as maintaining health insurance, daycare expenses, and payment of costs for extracurricular activities). Most importantly, these court orders allocate parenting time, which may …


American Diversity In International Arbitration: A New Arbitration Story Or Evidence Of Things Not Seen, Benjamin G. Davis May 2020

American Diversity In International Arbitration: A New Arbitration Story Or Evidence Of Things Not Seen, Benjamin G. Davis

Fordham Law Review

This Essay suggests that the unseen presence of blacks and other underrepresented groups (such as women, minorities, LGBTQ individuals, and persons with disabilities) in the shadows of the development of international arbitration law in the United States helps us to see that diversity, while unrecognized, has been inherent in American international arbitration for hundreds of years.


The Dark Side Of Consensus And Creativity: What Mediators Of Mass Disputes Need To Know About Agency Risks, Howard M. Erichson May 2020

The Dark Side Of Consensus And Creativity: What Mediators Of Mass Disputes Need To Know About Agency Risks, Howard M. Erichson

Fordham Law Review

This Essay looks at how mediators describe their role, and it asks whether—in negotiations to resolve mass disputes—the mindset and skill set of mediators may sometimes exacerbate rather than mitigate risks of self- serving conduct by lawyers. The Essay applies general concerns about class settlements and nonclass settlements to the particular problem of mass dispute mediation.


Remedy Without Diagnosis: How To Optimize Results By Leveraging The Appropriate Dispute Resolution And Shared Decision-Making Process, Mariana Hernandez-Crespo Gonstead May 2020

Remedy Without Diagnosis: How To Optimize Results By Leveraging The Appropriate Dispute Resolution And Shared Decision-Making Process, Mariana Hernandez-Crespo Gonstead

Fordham Law Review

This Article aims to realize the untapped potential of the dispute resolution field beyond traditional understandings of access to justice for everyone’s benefit. It argues that, by developing skills, citizens can significantly contribute to altering the course of history in our global economy, especially in Latin America and Venezuela. It introduces and familiarizes citizens with the knowledge developed in the dispute resolution field for the past fifty years. As a new field, dispute resolution is rapidly growing and evolving. Even though the knowledge produced is vital to help us interact more effectively, the materials are complex, dispersed, and, in some …


Arbitrarily Selecting Black Arbitrators, Michael Z. Green May 2020

Arbitrarily Selecting Black Arbitrators, Michael Z. Green

Fordham Law Review

Calls for increased diversity among arbitrators have surged with the growth of the employer movement, so-called mandatory arbitration, which requires employees to agree to arbitrate employment discrimination matters as a condition of employment. Despite good-faith efforts by neutral service providers, civil rights organizations, bar associations, and employer and employee groups to identify and address the need for more diverse arbitrators in mandatory arbitration, many commentators still lament that this diversity problem reflects negatively on access to justice. With the #MeToo movement’s focus in recent years on the lack of a public and transparent resolution for sexual harassment matters, as well …


Adr, Dynamic (In)Justice, And Achieving Access: A Foreclosure Crisis Case Study, Lydia Nussbaum May 2020

Adr, Dynamic (In)Justice, And Achieving Access: A Foreclosure Crisis Case Study, Lydia Nussbaum

Fordham Law Review

This Article proceeds in two parts. Part I argues for a dynamic, rather than fixed, conception of access to justice. It then explores how ADR processes, when placed in this dynamic framework, can create new forms of injustice and intensify preexisting ones. Part II presents a case study from the foreclosure crisis to illustrate how the features of ADR processes are especially well suited to respond to dynamic injustices. It further demonstrates how ADR design must evolve to respond to the dynamic system of (in)justice in which ADR processes operate.


Does Adr Feel Like Justice?, Jennifer W. Reynolds May 2020

Does Adr Feel Like Justice?, Jennifer W. Reynolds

Fordham Law Review

This Article contends that modern conflict spectacles, fueled by snap disputing dynamics and foisted upon the polity through media and social media, are so far afield from traditional ADR principles and practices that they may keep ADR from “feeling” like justice to many people. How people feel about alternative practices and processes will have an impact on whether they avail themselves of those methods in their own disputes. In other words, even if we had widely available, high-quality, and free ADR services available to everyone, we might still have an access to justice problem because those services would not be …


Measuring “Access To Justice” In The Rush To Digitize, Amy J. Schmitz May 2020

Measuring “Access To Justice” In The Rush To Digitize, Amy J. Schmitz

Fordham Law Review

Access to Justice (A2J) is the hot topic of the day, energizing Twitter and judges alike. Meanwhile, professors and policymakers join in song, singing the praises of online dispute resolution (ODR) as means for expanding A2J. This is because ODR uses technology to allow for online claim diagnosis, negotiation, and mediation without the time, money, and stress of traditional court processes. Indeed, courts are now moving traffic ticket, condominium, landlord/tenant, personal injury, debt collection, and even divorce claims online. The hope is that online triage and dispute resolution systems will provide means for obtaining remedies for self-represented litigants (SRLs) and …


Access To Justice And Dispute Resolution Across Cultures, Sukhsimranjit Singh May 2020

Access To Justice And Dispute Resolution Across Cultures, Sukhsimranjit Singh

Fordham Law Review

There is a saying in the United States: the justice one receives is the justice one can afford. All too often, this saying proves true for both lower- and middle-class individuals. For the greatly impoverished, the access to justice crisis is twofold: part of the problem is knowing when to seek legal help and another is ensuring adequate delivery of legal assistance on request. Middle- class individuals face a different challenge, as they surpass the income threshold for free civil public legal aid but cannot afford the rising costs of conventional litigation. The problem persists across different cultures. This Article …


How Mediation Contributes To The “Justice Gap” And Possible Technological Fixes, Ellen Waldman May 2020

How Mediation Contributes To The “Justice Gap” And Possible Technological Fixes, Ellen Waldman

Fordham Law Review

This Essay’s basic premise is that mediation, as it currently is presented to pro se parties in the lower courts, risks significant depredations of justice. This risk flows directly from the ethics rules that either discourage or outright forbid mediators from providing disputants with exactly the information they need to make informed judgments as they bargain over housing, time with children, and scarce financial resources.


Bringing Transparency And Accountability (With A Dash Of Competition) To Court-Connected Dispute Resolution, Nancy A. Welsh May 2020

Bringing Transparency And Accountability (With A Dash Of Competition) To Court-Connected Dispute Resolution, Nancy A. Welsh

Fordham Law Review

Among the various dispute resolution processes, mediation is the most widely institutionalized in American courts. As a result, this Article focuses primarily, although not exclusively, on the data collected and disseminated regarding court-connected mediation. The Article begins with a brief description of the institutionalization of mediation and other dispute resolution processes in the federal judicial system and in select U.S. state court systems. This narrative reveals substantial reference to the availability of mediation but a dizzying patchwork in terms of institutionalization and a significant lack of system-wide information in some states. The Article then focuses on the data that these …


Arbitration Archetypes For Enhancing Access To Justice, Jill I. Gross May 2020

Arbitration Archetypes For Enhancing Access To Justice, Jill I. Gross

Fordham Law Review

In the second half of the twentieth century, the use of arbitration proliferated in the United States as part of a greater alternative dispute resolution (ADR) movement, with the promise that using ADR processes would, among other things, enhance disputants’ access to justice. Arbitration offers disputing parties a process to resolve their dispute, which, at least in theory, is known for decreased cost, increased speed, party control, privacy, and finality. These characteristics generally enhance parties’ access to justice because, as compared to litigation, barriers to entry are lower, outcomes are delivered more quickly, substantive outcomes are more equitable, and parties …


Restorative Justice From Prosecutors’ Perspective, Bruce A. Green, Lara Bazelon Jan 2020

Restorative Justice From Prosecutors’ Perspective, Bruce A. Green, Lara Bazelon

Fordham Law Review

Restorative justice processes have been promoted as an alternative to criminal adjudication for many years outside the United States and, in recent years, in the United States as well. In the United States, restorative justice processes are used in some jurisdictions in cases involving juvenile offenders or low-level, nonviolent offenses by adults, but they have rarely been used in cases of adult felony offenders charged with serious violent crimes. Whether restorative justice processes will be used more broadly depends largely on whether prosecutors become receptive to their use. A handful of newly elected “progressive prosecutors” have expressed interest in applying …


Mandatory Arbitration And Sexual Harassment Claims: #Metoo- And Time's Up-Inspired Action Against The Federal Arbitration Act, Kathleen Mccullough May 2019

Mandatory Arbitration And Sexual Harassment Claims: #Metoo- And Time's Up-Inspired Action Against The Federal Arbitration Act, Kathleen Mccullough

Fordham Law Review

The rise of the #MeToo movement and Time’s Up campaign has brought the issue of sexual harassment into the national spotlight. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filings for sexual harassment claims have increased 13 percent since the start of the #MeToo movement, and a little over a year since its creation on January 1, 2018, the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund has received 4139 requests for representation in sexual harassment claims. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the Federal Arbitration Act to enforce mandatory arbitration clauses for employment claims, including sexual harassment claims—an interpretation that prohibits employees from pursuing litigation …


Restoring Bankruptcy’S Fresh Start, Jonathan S. Hermann Oct 2017

Restoring Bankruptcy’S Fresh Start, Jonathan S. Hermann

Fordham Law Review

The discharge injunction, which allows former debtors to be free from any efforts to collect former debt, is a primary feature of bankruptcy law in the United States. When creditors have systemically violated debtors’ discharge injunctions, some debtors have attempted to challenge those creditors through a class action lawsuit in bankruptcy court. However, the pervasiveness of class-waiving arbitration clauses likely prevents those debtors from disputing discharge injunction violations outside of binding, individual arbitration. This Note first discusses areas of disagreement regarding how former debtors may enforce their discharge injunctions. Then, it examines the types of disputes that allow debtors to …


Restraining Lawyers: From “Cases” To “Tasks”, Morris A. Ratner Apr 2017

Restraining Lawyers: From “Cases” To “Tasks”, Morris A. Ratner

Fordham Law Review

These regulatory and market mechanisms for restraining lawyers share a common thread but differ in their purposes, efficacy, and fairness. Despite these differences, the growing intensity of their focus, and their possible amplification of each other, suggest the possibility of the emergence of new professional norms that call on litigators to think more deeply and inclusively about value from the perspective of court and client when making litigation choices.


Closure Provisions In Mdl Settlements, D. Theodore Rave Apr 2017

Closure Provisions In Mdl Settlements, D. Theodore Rave

Fordham Law Review

Closure has value in mass litigation. Defendants often insist on it as a condition of settlement, and plaintiffs who can deliver it may be able to command a premium. But in multidistrict litigation (MDL), which currently makes up over one-third of the federal docket, closure depends on individual claimants deciding to participate in a global settlement. Accordingly, MDL settlement designers often include terms designed to encourage claimants to opt in to the settlement and discourage them from continuing to litigate. Some of these terms have been criticized as unduly coercive and as benefiting the negotiating parties—the defendant and the lead …


The Public Believes Predispute Binding Arbitration Clauses Are Unjust: Ethical Implications For Dispute-System Design In The Time Of Vanishing Trials, Victor D. Quintanilla, Alexander B. Avtgis Apr 2017

The Public Believes Predispute Binding Arbitration Clauses Are Unjust: Ethical Implications For Dispute-System Design In The Time Of Vanishing Trials, Victor D. Quintanilla, Alexander B. Avtgis

Fordham Law Review

Drawing on these findings, we discuss the pressing need for a wider ethic that applies to transactional attorneys who design binding arbitration clauses within adhesion contracts. We also draw lessons from behavioral legal ethics and social psychology. These lessons reveal that this wider ethic may be endangered by the situational influences that currently operate within law firms (and in-house) due to these two intersecting patterns. We discuss ways of altering the regulatory environment to encourage the wider ethic to flourish.


The Bellwether Settlement, Adam S. Zimmerman Apr 2017

The Bellwether Settlement, Adam S. Zimmerman

Fordham Law Review

This Article examines the use of bellwether mediation in mass litigation. Bellwether mediations are different from bellwether trials,” a practice where parties choose a representative sample of cases for trial to determine how to resolve a much larger number of similar cases. In bellwether mediations, the parties instead rely on a representative sample of settlement outcomes overseen by judges and court-appointed mediators.


The Public Believes Predispute Binding Arbitration Clauses Are Unjust: Ethical Implications For Dispute-System Design In The Time Of Vanishing Trials, Victor D. Quintanilla, Alexander B. Avtgis Apr 2017

The Public Believes Predispute Binding Arbitration Clauses Are Unjust: Ethical Implications For Dispute-System Design In The Time Of Vanishing Trials, Victor D. Quintanilla, Alexander B. Avtgis

Fordham Law Review

Drawing on these findings, we discuss the pressing need for a wider ethic that applies to transactional attorneys who design binding arbitration clauses within adhesion contracts. We also draw lessons from behavioral legal ethics and social psychology. These lessons reveal that this wider ethic may be endangered by the situational influences that currently operate within law firms (and in-house) due to these two intersecting patterns. We discuss ways of altering the regulatory environment to encourage the wider ethic to flourish.


Restraining Lawyers: From “Cases” To “Tasks”, Morris A. Ratner Apr 2017

Restraining Lawyers: From “Cases” To “Tasks”, Morris A. Ratner

Fordham Law Review

These regulatory and market mechanisms for restraining lawyers share a common thread but differ in their purposes, efficacy, and fairness. Despite these differences, the growing intensity of their focus, and their possible amplification of each other, suggest the possibility of the emergence of new professional norms that call on litigators to think more deeply and inclusively about value from the perspective of court and client when making litigation choices.


The Bellwether Settlement, Adam S. Zimmerman Apr 2017

The Bellwether Settlement, Adam S. Zimmerman

Fordham Law Review

This Article examines the use of bellwether mediation in mass litigation. Bellwether mediations are different from bellwether trials,” a practice where parties choose a representative sample of cases for trial to determine how to resolve a much larger number of similar cases. In bellwether mediations, the parties instead rely on a representative sample of settlement outcomes overseen by judges and court-appointed mediators.


Closure Provisions In Mdl Settlements, D. Theodore Rave Apr 2017

Closure Provisions In Mdl Settlements, D. Theodore Rave

Fordham Law Review

Closure has value in mass litigation. Defendants often insist on it as a condition of settlement, and plaintiffs who can deliver it may be able to command a premium. But in multidistrict litigation (MDL), which currently makes up over one-third of the federal docket, closure depends on individual claimants deciding to participate in a global settlement. Accordingly, MDL settlement designers often include terms designed to encourage claimants to opt in to the settlement and discourage them from continuing to litigate. Some of these terms have been criticized as unduly coercive and as benefiting the negotiating parties—the defendant and the lead …


Oh, Won't You Stay With Me?: Determining Whether § 3 Of The Faa Requires A Stay In Light Of Katz V. Cellco Partnership, Alessandra Rose Johnson Apr 2016

Oh, Won't You Stay With Me?: Determining Whether § 3 Of The Faa Requires A Stay In Light Of Katz V. Cellco Partnership, Alessandra Rose Johnson

Fordham Law Review

The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) provides the legal framework to render international and interstate arbitration agreements judicially enforceable in the United States. In furtherance of that goal, it provides that, if a party initiates litigation rather than arbitration of an arbitrable dispute, either party may request that the court stay the litigation pending resolution in an arbitration proceeding. The U.S. courts of appeals are currently split as to whether § 3 of the FAA requires a court under these circumstances to stay the action or whether the court has the discretion to dismiss the action altogether. In Katz v. Cellco …