Law Commons^™

Hey, Big Spender: Ethical Guidelines For Dispute Resolution Professionals When Parties Are Backed By Third-Party Funders, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

This first-of-its-kind paper introduces ethical guidelines and suggested practices for dispute resolution providers and neutrals when third-party funders provide financial backing for parties in U.S. domestic arbitrations and mediations. Sophisticated third-party funders have realized that litigation and dispute resolution are fast-growing, unregulated investment opportunities. Seizing these opportunities, third-party funders are now making billions of dollars in profits through their strategic investments in domestic and global litigation and dispute resolution with few ethical rules or regulations to curtail their investment behavior.3 Preferring to be secretive about the terms of their funding contracts and invisible in their work, third- party funders are …

Up Close And Personal: Whether Or Not You Decide To Report A Confidentiality Exception, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In your role as lawyer or neutral, have you ever reported an otherwise confidential communication because it was one of these permissible confidentiality exceptions? Why? This column will discuss how our ethical and personal considerations shape our decisions as advocates and dispute resolution professionals about whether to report ethically permissible exceptions to confidentiality. Readers, you are invited to rethink your ethical reporting obligations and develop more self-awareness about your personal rationales for your reporting choices.

... Because "Yes" Actually Means "No": A Personalized Prescriptive To Reactualize Informed Consent In Dispute Resolution, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

This paper proposes a radical departure from the status quo approach to securing a client’s informed consent about settlement options and refocuses informed consent practice back to what informed consent is about, the client. As it exists today, the status quo approach to securing a client’s informed consent about whether or not to use an alternative dispute resolution procedure to resolve the client’s case is inadequate. It thwarts a client’s right to exercise party self- determination and stymies a client’s ability to make informed justice choices. Lawyers, courts, ADR providers and neutrals routinely provide litigants with generic information about the …

Acts Like A Lawyer, Talks Like A Lawyer…Non-Lawyer Advocates Representing Parties In Dispute Resolution, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

What are the ethical implications for lawyer mediators, arbitrators and dispute resolution providers when the lines between the roles of lawyers and the non-lawyers who are representing clients in dispute resolution become blurry? Traditionally, non-lawyer advocates (hereinafter NARs) have represented clients in the negotiations, mediation and arbitration of legal matters without cause for concern. Yes, labor union representatives, sports agents, and special education advocates are three familiar examples of non-lawyers who represent clients in negotiations, mediations and arbitrations, informing clients of their legal rights. Routinely, the lawyers and neutrals presiding over the dispute resolution procedure have warmly welcomed these …

Empowering Consumers Through Online Dispute Resolution, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

We transact online every day, hoping that no problems will occur. However, our purchases are not always perfect: goods may not arrive; products may be faulty; expectations may go unmet. When this occurs, we are often left frustrated, with no means for seeking redress. Phone calls to customer service are generally unappealing and ineffective, and traditional face-to-face or judicial processes for asserting claims are impractical after weighing costs against likely recovery. This is especially true when seeking redress requires travel, or for crossborder claims involving jurisdictional complexities. This situation has created a need for online dispute resolution (“ODR”), which brings …

The Cuban Missile Crisis, Historian Barbara W. Tuchman, And The Art Of Writing, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

From behind-the-scenes accounts, we know that an articulate best-selling book published just a few months earlier by historian Barbara W. Tuchman, a private citizen who held no government position, contributed directly to the delicate negotiated resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After chronicling Tuchman's contribution to world peace. this article discusses her later Public Douglas commentary about what she called the "art of writing," commentary that remains instructive for lawyers who write as representatives of clients or causes in the private or public sector.

Collective Bargaining And Dispute System Design, Rafael Gely

Faculty Publications

This article seeks to reestablish the conversation between collective bargaining and dispute system design scholars. Part II provides a brief description of the system of collective bargaining by focusing on the three key steps of union organizing, contract negotiation, and contract administration. Part III does the same for the literature on dispute system design by identifying some of the seminal literature in the field as well as other work particularly relevant to workplace dispute resolution systems. In Part IV, the article seeks to achieve one modest goal and one that is more ambitious. As to the modest goal, this article …

When Worldviews Collide—Strategic Advocacy V. A Mediator’S Ethical Obligations, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The provocative headline “Judge Orders Preservation of Mediation Notes In Gender Bias Suit Against Proskauer” sparks the topic of this Ethical Compass discussion. What should be done when a lawyer’s litigation strategy collides with a mediator’s ethical standards of practice? There is growing concern by dispute professionals, including this author, that this collision is diluting the benefits of mediation and re-shaping mediation into quasi-adjudicative dispute resolution procedure. Others hear this as a clarion call from litigators to the mediation community to realize that mediation ideals are just that, and will not deflate litigation advocacy strategies. These polarized perspectives present …

When The Empty Adr Chair Is Occupied By A Litigation Funder, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The discussion about the $140 million jury verdict against Gawker media for posting a sex video of Terry Bollea, professionally known as Hulk Hogan, having sex with his best friend’s wife, quickly shifted to a conversation about the ethics of litigation funding when it was finally disclosed that Peter Thiel had funded Bollea’s litigation. The backstory reveals that Gawker outed Thiel, revealing his homosexuality ten years earlier in a more conservative time when such a revelation might have impacted Thiel’s earning capacity. Thiel, an icon in Silicone Valley and a co-founder of PayPal, promised revenge. Thiel got his revenge, …

Large-Scale Dispute Resolution In Jurisdictions Without Judicial Class Actions: Learning From The Irish Experience, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

Recent years have seen an unprecedented expansion of the ability to assert large-scale claims in national judicial systems, either on a collective or representative (class) basis. Numerous countries, including many that excoriated United States-style class actions in the past, have now adopted various forms of collective redress as society's need to respond large-scale claims has increased. Although every jurisdiction has developed its own unique method of responding to large-scale legal injuries, there appears to be a growing consensus that contemporary legal systems require some means of responding to widespread harm involving the same or similar facts. Not every jurisdiction has …

...Because It’S Not Just About Money, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

When lawyers represent their clients in party-decided dispute resolution processes such as negotiation or mediation, lawyers have a unique opportunity to work with their clients to help shape a comprehensive settlement beyond just a monetary settlement. This is an opportunity to address the client’s human and core concerns and to help their client secure their personalized sense of justice. However, lawyers and mediators who myopically seek to resolve every legal conflict by just monetary resolution are akin to the carpenter who sees everything as a nail because the only tool available is a hammer. This column invites you to …

The Power Of Empathy, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

As colleagues in the dispute resolution field, we have likely participated in the ongoing, often heated debate about the role, if any, of empathy in dispute resolution. There are those colleagues who believe that empathy will only muck up what is really important, the bottom-line number and your evaluation about how to get there. On the other side of this controversy, there are seasoned colleagues who regularly use empathy as dispute resolution currency, often at the risk of being marginalized as “touchy feely” by those who don’t understand its value. To help us get past each other’s anecdotal justifications …

Introducing The 'New Handshake' To Expand Remedies And Revive Responsibility In Ecommerce, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

There was a time when individuals would meet in person to make purchases and do deals. They would discuss the terms, assess the trustworthiness and character of their contracting partners, and conclude the deal with a handshake. The handshake helped ensure the enforcement of the deal without need for the rule of law or legal power. That handshake was one’s bond — it was a personal trust mark. With the emergence of eCommerce, however, that handshake has nearly disappeared along with the sense of responsibility it inspired. Accordingly, this article discusses how this has impacted consumers’ access to remedies regarding …

Federal Civil Litigation At The Crossroads: Reshaping The Role Of The Federal Courts In Twenty-First Century Dispute Resolution, Edward D. Cavanagh

Faculty Publications

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were promulgated in 1938 to provide the “just, speedy, and inexpensive determination” of all civil actions. The underlying theme of the Federal Rules is that meritorious litigants should have their day in court. To that end, the Federal Rules eliminated procedural pitfalls, including highly technical forms of action inherited from common law, that rewarded mastery of pleading techniques over the substantive merits of claims. The Federal Rules also introduced a simplified pleading system, commonly denominated as “notice pleading,” thereby easing the heavy burden imposed on the parties. The factual details of the case could …

When “Yes” May Actually Mean “No”: Rethinking Informed Consent To Adr Processes, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

It is time for us to rethink how to achieve meaningful party consent to ADR processes such as mediation and arbitration. I, along with my colleagues Professors Jeff Sovern, Paul F. Kirgis and Yuxiang Liu, recently contributed to the growing body of research finding that a party’s consent to use an ADR process rather than utilizing a court to resolve the dispute is too often neither informed nor consensual. In our empirical study “’Whimsy Little Contracts’ With Unexpected Consequences: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Understanding of Arbitration Agreements,” we found a paucity of consumer awareness and understanding of arbitration …

Good Pretrial Lawyering: Planning To Get To Yes Sooner, Cheaper, And Better, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

Although the ostensible purpose for pretrial litigation is to prepare for trial, such preparation is inextricably intertwined with negotiation because the expected trial outcome is a major factor affecting negotiation. Indeed, since most litigated cases are settled, good litigators prepare for negotiation at least as much as trial. The lawyers interviewed for this article, who were selected because of their good reputations, described how they prepare for both possibilities. They recommend taking charge of their cases from the outset, which includes getting a clear understanding of clients and their interests, developing good relationships with counterpart lawyers, carefully investigating the cases, …

Mass Procedures As A Form Of "Regulatory Arbitration" - Abaclat V. Argentine Republic And The International Investment Regime, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

This article takes a unique and intriguing look at the issues presented by Abaclat, considering the legitimacy of mass procedures from a regulatory perspective and using new governance theory to determine whether a new form of regulatory arbitration is currently being developed. In so doing, the discussion describes the basic parameters of regulatory litigation and analyzes the special problems that arise when regulatory litigation is used in the transnational context, then transfers those concepts into the arbitral realm. This sort of analysis, which is entirely novel as a matter of either public or private law, will shape future inquiries regarding …

Lost Options For Mutual Gain? The Layperson, The Lawyer, And Dispute Resolution In Early America, Carli N. Conklin

Faculty Publications

In 1786, legal reform activist Benjamin Austin undertook a campaign to promote the use of arbitration over litigation as the primary method of dispute resolution in Massachusetts. Although supported by a groundswell of anti-lawyer sentiment, Austin ultimately failed in securing the triumph of arbitration. Exploring Austin's pamphlet campaign in its historical context not only provides us with a snapshot of the arguments for and against dispute resolution in early America, but also serves as a corrective to the prevailing accounts of arbitration in American legal history. This article explores the context and content of Austin's pamphlet campaign and its implications …

Confidentiality: The Illusion And The Reality— Affirmative Steps For Lawyers And Mediators To Help Safeguard Their Mediation Communications, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Confidentiality is one promise of mediation that is increasingly broken, even though judges, lawyers and mediators frequently extol the sacredness of mediation confidentiality as a primary benefit for considering mediation as a settlement forum. We observe that legal challenges to any aspect of the mediation have caused judges to scrutinize mediation communications in a way that renders mediation confidentiality vulnerable at a minimum and violated at the worst. We are finding it a chronic challenge to decipher the precise and appropriate boundaries of mediation confidentiality. Moreover, we are increasingly discomforted to see that even unsuccessful legal challenges to mediation …

What Sally Soprano Teaches Lawyers About Hitting The Right Ethical Note In Adr Advocacy, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Paradoxically, when lawyers opt to mediate or arbitrate, lawyers may still wind up selecting, shaping and advocating in these dispute resolution processes to resemble the very litigation process they have sought to avoid. After all, litigation likely comports with the lawyer’s own conflict style, comfort level and concepts of justice. As a consequence of this litigation bias, we see that the metaphorical doors of a multi-door courthouse that once offered a menu of dispute resolution choices are increasingly leading us back to one choice: a variation of the litigation door. Even though the Model Rules of Professional Conduct confirm …

Ensuring Remedies To Cure Cramming, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

The unauthorized addition of third party charges to telecommunications bills ("cramming") is a growing problem that has caught the attention of federal regulators and state attorney generals. This Article therefore discusses the problems associated with cramming, and highlights consumers’ uphill battles in seeking remedies with respect to cramming claims. Indeed, it is imperative for policymakers, researchers, consumer advocates, and industry groups to collaborate in developing means for resolving these claims. Accordingly, this Article offers a proposal for resolving cramming disputes in order to advance this collaboration, and inspire development of a functioning online dispute resolution ("ODR") process to handle these …

American Exceptionalism In Consumer Arbitration, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

“American exceptionalism” has been used to reference the United States’ outlier policies in various contexts, including its love for litigation. Despite Americans’ reverence for their “day in court,” their zest for contractual freedom and efficiency has prevailed to result in U.S. courts’ strict enforcement of arbitration provisions in both business-to-business (“B2B”) and business-to-consumer (“B2C”) contracts. This is exceptional because although most of the world joins the United States in generally enforcing B2B arbitration under the New York Convention, many other countries refuse or strictly limit arbitration enforcement in B2C relationships due to concerns regarding power imbalances and public enforcement of …

Resolving Mass Legal Disputes Through Class Arbitration: The United States And Canada Compared, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

This article compares three issues that have arisen as a result of recent Supreme Court decisions in both countries: the circumstances in which class arbitration is available; the procedures that must or may be used; and the nature of the right to proceed as a class. In so doing, the article not only offers valuable lessons to parties in the U.S. and Canada, but also provides observers from other countries with a useful framework for considering issues relating to the intersection between collective relief and arbitration.

Principles For Designing Negotiation Instruction, John M. Lande, Ximena Bustamante, Jay Folberg, Joel Lee

Faculty Publications

This article analyzes recommendations in the Rethinking Negotiation Teaching (RNT) series. Instructors teaching negotiation and other dispute resolution subjects have long had a hard time trying to cover everything they would like in their courses. The RNT project has documented (and, to some extent, stimulated) a growing profusion of ideas and techniques for teaching negotiation, which has multiplied instructors’ dilemmas in designing their courses. Since instructors cannot teach everything they would like, this article suggests some general principles for making decisions about what to include and how to conduct these courses. Clearly, there is no single right or best way …

The Revolution In Family Law Dispute Resolution, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

This article surveys a wide range of procedures that divorcing parties now use, including self-representation. Lawyers sometimes provide “unbundled” legal services to help parties who want to divide responsibilities for legal tasks between themselves and their lawyers. Parties often use mediation, arbitration, and private judging. Norms for lawyers’ professional roles have emphasized the importance of cooperation and some lawyers offer “planned early negotiation” processes such as Collaborative and Cooperative Law. Family courts engage in a wide range of activities beyond traditional litigation and adjudication. Many courts manage or mandate parent education and services related to domestic violence. Courts regularly appoint …

Faa Law, Without The Activism: What If The Bellwether Cases Were Decided By A Truly Conservative Court, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided an extraordinary number of cases under the Federal Arbitration Act in the last half century, a pattern that continues today at the pace of a case or two a year. During this time, Republican presidential candidates have made much political hay out of the Supreme Court, running against the Warren Court’s “liberal activism” by promising to appoint judges who would decide cases more conservatively. In this article, I analyze whether this promise has been fulfilled in the context of the Supreme Court’s FAA jurisprudence by identifying the core principles of judicial conservatism – restraint, …

Forum Non Conveniens On Appeal: The Case For Interlocutory Review, Cassandra Burke Robertson

Faculty Publications

Court-access doctrine in transnational litigation is plagued by uncertainty. Without a national court-access policy, federal courts often reach inconsistent forum non conveniens decisions even on very similar facts. This inconsistency is compounded by the district court’s largely unreviewable discretion in making those forum-access decisions, which precludes effective resolution of these conflicts through the appellate process. As a result, the law underlying the forum non conveniens doctrine remains unsettled, creating systemic inefficiency both in litigation procedure and in regulatory policy.

This article, prepared for the symposium “Our Courts and the World: Transnational Litigation and Civil Procedure,” argues that expanding appellate review …

Access To Consumer Remedies In The Squeaky Wheel System, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

This article explores the “Squeaky Wheel System” (“SWS”) in business-to-consumer (“B2C”) contexts, referring to merchants’ reservation of purchase remedies and other contract benefits for only the relatively few “squeaky wheel” consumers who have the requisite information and resources to persistently seek assistance. The article uncovers how this system fosters contractual discrimination and hinders consumers’ awareness and access with respect to contract remedies. It also adds empirical insights from my recent e-survey, and offers suggestions for using the internet to empower consumers of all economic and status levels with efficient and accessible means for learning about their purchase rights and asserting …

Building Bridges To Consumer Remedies In International Econflicts, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

Consumer purchases over the Internet (“ePurchases”) are on the rise, thereby causing an increase in conflicts regarding these purchases (“eConflicts”). Furthermore, these conflicts are increasingly international as consumers purchase goods over the Internet not knowing or caring where the seller is physically located. The problem is that if the purchase goes awry, consumers are often left without recourse due to the futility of pursing international litigation and the textured law and policy regarding enforcement of private dispute resolution procedures, namely arbitration. The United States strictly enforces arbitration contracts in business-to-consumer (“B2C”) relationships, while other countries have refused or limited enforcement …

Arbitration Ambush In A Policy Polemic, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

Arbitration has been demonized in the media and consumer protection debates, often without empirical support or consideration of its attributes. This has led to renewed efforts to pass the Arbitration Fairness Action, which would bar enforcement of pre-dispute arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and civil rights contexts. It also inspired Dodd-Frank’s preclusion of arbitration clauses in mortgage contracts, along with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s charge to prohibit or limit enforcement of pre-dispute arbitration agreements in consumer financial products and services contracts. Some of this negativity toward arbitration is warranted, especially in the wake of the United Supreme Court’s recent …