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Full-Text Articles in Law
Fighting Arbitration Clauses In Franchisor Contracts, Jean R. Sternlight
Fighting Arbitration Clauses In Franchisor Contracts, Jean R. Sternlight
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Purporting to serve justice, efficiency, and freedom of contract, business interests are increasingly attempting to use binding arbitration clauses to secure unfair advantages over unknowing parties. Courts seemingly have been eager to enforce arbitration clauses that appear in franchise agreements. This article discusses courts’ enforcement of arbitration clauses, undermining protections to the franchisee, and how franchisees can create a more level playing field.
Identifying Real Dichotomies Underlying The False Dichotomy: Twenty-First Century Mediation In An Eclectic Regime, Jeffrey W. Stempel
Identifying Real Dichotomies Underlying The False Dichotomy: Twenty-First Century Mediation In An Eclectic Regime, Jeffrey W. Stempel
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Some people (lawyers, scholars, judges, dispute resolvers, policymakers) are more concerned about fidelity to procedural protocols while others are more concerned with the substantive rules governing disputes and substantive outcomes. Those in the dispute resolution community preferring facilitation tend to be proceduralists. For them, the observance of proper procedure is a high goal, perhaps the dominant goal. They reason, often implicitly, that adherence to the rules of procedure is the essence of neutrality, fairness, and the proper role of a dispute resolving apparatus. At some level, usually subconscious, there is a post-modern philosophical aspect of this preference. Because humans cannot …
The Inevitability Of The Eclectic: Liberating Adr From Ideology, Jeffrey W. Stempel
The Inevitability Of The Eclectic: Liberating Adr From Ideology, Jeffrey W. Stempel
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The problem with viewing facilitation as the only legitimate form of mediation, of course, is that it borders on tautology: mediation is nonevaluative, therefore any evaluation in mediation must be impermissible. Although this view remains strongly held in many quarters, it appears to be in retreat, both within the mediation community and in the legal community at large. Courts and commentators have shown increasing favor toward some evaluative or advising component of mediation. More important, the eclectic style appears to be what takes place in the metaphorical trenches of mediation practice (although sound empirical data is necessarily hard to obtain …
Protecting Franchisees From Abusive Arbitration Clauses, Jean R. Sternlight
Protecting Franchisees From Abusive Arbitration Clauses, Jean R. Sternlight
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This article sets out a number of legal arguments that franchisees can potentially use to defeat arbitration clauses that seek to accomplish ends that would not be permissible in litigation. Drawing from decisions protecting consumers and employees from unfair arbitration clauses, as well as from opinions in the franchise context, this article analyzes arguments that can be based on the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, state statutes, and common law. By way of this analysis, it suggests that some courts are misapplying arbitration precedents and preemption arguments to support decisions that allow franchisors to effectively exempt themselves from legislation and even …
Is Binding Arbitration A Form Of Adr?: An Argument That The Term "Adr" Has Begun To Outlive Its Usefulness, Jean R. Sternlight
Is Binding Arbitration A Form Of Adr?: An Argument That The Term "Adr" Has Begun To Outlive Its Usefulness, Jean R. Sternlight
Scholarly Works
Professor Frank Sander has, for many years, been one of the most prescient commentators on the alternative dispute resolution ("ADR") movement. His 1976 Pound Conference speech has been identified by many as marking the birth of the modern ADR phenomena. That speech, which compared some of the pros and cons of litigation and an array of other dispute resolution processes, has been summarized as proposing the concept of the "multi-door courthouse." In contrast, Professor Sander's more recent and very interesting review of the present and future of ADR makes little attempt to distinguish between mediation and binding arbitration, the two …
As Mandatory Binding Arbitration Meets The Class Action, Will The Class Action Survive?, Jean R. Sternlight
As Mandatory Binding Arbitration Meets The Class Action, Will The Class Action Survive?, Jean R. Sternlight
Scholarly Works
Assuming that the traditional prerequisites for a class action have been met, courts have four choices: (1) order the dispute to be resolved in an individualized arbitration, thereby denying plaintiffs either a litigation or arbitration venue for their class claims; (2) refuse to mandate arbitration, and instead allow plaintiffs to litigate their class claims; (3) order that the dispute be resolved through an arbitral class action, also known as classwide arbitration; or (4) order the dispute to arbitration but allow the arbitrators to make the determination as to whether the dispute should be resolved individually or on a class basis. …