Law Commons^™

Forced Arbitration Undermines Enforcement Of Federal Laws By Suppressing Consumers' And Employees' Ability To Bring Claims, Jean R. Sternlight

Congressional Testimony

Testimony of Professor Jean R. Sternlight to the Senate Judiciary Committee, arguing for the passage of the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2013.

Adr's Place In Foreclosure: Remedying The Flaws Of A Securitized Housing Market, Lydia Nussbaum

Scholarly Works

Millions of Americans lost their homes during the foreclosure crisis, an unprecedented disaster still plaguing local and national economies. A primary factor contributing to the crisis has been the failure of conventional foreclosure procedures to account for the new realities of securitization and the secondary mortgage market, which transformed the traditional borrower-lender relationship. To compensate for the shortcomings of conventional foreclosure procedures and stem the tide of residential foreclosure, state and local governments turned to ADR processes for a solution. Some foreclosure ADR programs, however, have greater potential to avoid foreclosures than others. This Article comprehensively examines the key components …

Mandatory Binding Arbitration Clauses Prevent Consumers From Presenting Procedurally Difficult Claims, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

The longstanding debate over the benefits and detriments of mandatory arbitration in the consumer context has often focused on the wrong issue. Although we have now argued for almost twenty years over whether it is appropriate to require consumers to arbitrate rather than litigate claims against providers of products and services, too often commentators have asked whether consumers win or lose when they bring claims in arbitration, rather than whether consumers’ claims are suppressed or eliminated altogether as a result of companies’ use of mandatory arbitration clauses. The United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion brings …

Tainted Love: An Increasingly Odd Arbitral Infatuation In Derogation Of Sound And Consistent Jurisprudence, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Paradox Lost: The Potential Of Restorative Attorney Discipline — With A Cautionary Call For Making Distinctions, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Brewing Lemonade: Conflict Resolution And The Economic Crisis, Jean R. Sternlight

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Feeding The Right Wolf: A Niebuhrian Perspective On The Opportunities And Limits Of Mindful Core Concerns Dispute Resolution, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Nevada Law Journal

This Article offers a few observations regarding both the promise and the difficulties faced in using mindful core concerns dispute resolution. Part II focuses on the difficulties faced by mindful negotiators and mediators when confronted with disputants who are too adversarial, selfish, unrealistic, or unresponsive to overtures for interest-based bargaining--even after skilled attempts to neutralize whatever negative emotions may be fueling their counterproductive behavior. In making these assessments and suggestions, the Article relies significantly on the work of Reinhold Niebuhr. Appreciation of Niebuhr's insights can assist mindful negotiation by helping the negotiator to distinguish those situations amenable to the cooperative …

The Potential Contribution Of Adr To An Integrated Curriculum: Preparing Law Students For Real World Lawyering, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

This Article briefly reviews the long history of critiques of legal education that highlight the failure to adequately prepare students for what they will and should do as attorneys. It takes a sober look at the hurdles reformers face when trying to make significant curricular changes and proposes a modest menu of reforms that interested faculty and law schools can largely achieve without investing substantial additional resources. This Article emphasizes the special contributions that alternative dispute resolution (ADR) can provide to legal education more generally. ADR instruction is an important corrective to a curriculum that routinely conveys the erroneous implication …

Lawyerless Dispute Resolution: Rethinking A Paradigm, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

Do participants in mediation and arbitration have attorneys? Do they need them? Although the phenomenon of pro se litigation has received substantial attention in recent years, few commentators or policymakers have focused on these questions. The failure to focus on the possible need for representation in mediation and arbitration is based on an often unstated premise that because ADR processes are purportedly non-adversarial or less adversarial than litigation, disputants need representation less in ADR than they do in litigation. This Article suggests that the failure to focus on the possible need for representation in mediation and arbitration is fundamentally misguided. …

Fixing The Mandatory Arbitration Problem: We Need The Arbitration Fairness Act Of 2009, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Dispute Resolution And The Quest For Justice, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

During and since the 1976 Pound conference, the rise of nonlitigation approaches has sparked an intense debate as to whether negotiation, mediation, and arbitration are consistent with justice or rule of law, and whether litigation itself is sufficiently accessible to support a quest for justice. This article offers observations on questions related to this debate, including whether procedure matters, the limits of procedural reform, whether some processes are more just than others, and how procedural reforms enhance justice.

Mandating Minimum Quality In Mass Arbitration, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court's decision in McMahon and its progeny has led many businesses and employers to embrace what was once deemed a localized, industry-specific practice. The "new" or "mass arbitration" only mildly resembles the traditional system employed by niches in industry for settling commercial matters among commercial actors. While the "old" system involved parties who were relatively equal in bargaining power and knowledge, these systems for mass arbitration lack a freely entered bargain and resemble more closely, contracts of adhesion. Privatized arbitration resolves issues of both statutory and substantive law, and there is a strong argument, given the inexperience of …

Introduction: Dreaming About Arbitration Reform, Jean R. Sternlight

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of Mandatory Binding Arbitration (If Imposed On The Company), Jean R. Sternlight

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Adr: The New Equity, Thomas O. Main

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Creeping Mandatory Arbitration: Is It Just?, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

This Article examines the phenomenon of mandatory binding arbitration, imposed on consumers and employees, and considers whether this type of dispute resolution serves or instead undermines justice. It is fairly easy to attack binding arbitration as unfair, for example pointing to the fact that it undermines rights to jury trial and to proceed in class actions. However, this Article seeks to examine the phenomenon of mandatory binding arbitration from a broader perspective, recognizing that it is inappropriate to assume that justice requires our existing system of litigation, with its class actions and jury trial. The Article concludes that while informal …

Foreward: Competing And Complementary Rule Systems: Civil Procedure And Adr, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

This is a foreword to articles submitted as part of the Association of American Law School’s Symposium during at the January 2004 AALS’s Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia entitled "Competing or Complementary Rule Systems? Adjudication, Arbitration and the Procedural World of the Future." The session brought together panelists whose expertises ranged across the academy. The legal academics were joined by the federal district judge now chairing the committee charged by the Judicial Conference of the United States to draft federal civil procedural rules. The stimulating session reflected on the relationship between litigation and non-litigation approaches to dispute resolution. Participants explored …

Separate And Not Equal: Integrating Civil Procedure And Adr In Legal Academia, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

Traditionally, academics specializing in ADR and civil procedure have not tended to deal with each other's issues. The typical civil procedure course focuses on litigation, and at best throws in a few classes on mediation and negotiation. Similarly, the typical ADR course devotes little or no attention to litigation, law, courts, or administrative institutions. Thus, the two disciplines are taught quite separately. Further, this separation is not equal. While students are required to learn about litigation, and are also offered many additional litigation electives, the ADR curriculum is almost always purely elective, and the classes are much smaller. Yet, the …

Lawyers, Democracy And Dispute Resolution: The Declining Influence Of Lawyer-Statesmen Politicians And Lawyerly Values, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Arbitration, Unconscionability, And Equilibrium: The Return Of Unconscionability Analysis As A Counterweight To Arbitration Formalism, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

However incomplete, unaggressive, or sub-optimal, unconscionability analysis of arbitration agreements has made something of a comeback in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, water seeks to be level, and ecosystems work to retain environmental stability, the legal system has witnessed an incremental effort by lower courts to soften the rough edges of the Supreme Court's pro-arbitration jurisprudence through rediscovery of what might be called the “unconscionability norm”--a collective judicial view as to what aspects of an arbitration arrangement are too unfair to merit judicial enforcement. In rediscovering and reinvigorating the unconscionability norm …

Boyd School Of Law Establishes Saltman Center For Conflict Resolution, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

This article discusses William S. Boyd School of Law’s establishment of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution.

In Search Of The Best Procedure For Enforcing Employment Discrimination Laws: A Comparative Analysis, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

As our world effectively shrinks, many countries are beginning to reach a striking substantive consensus regarding the prohibition of employment discrimination. Yet, and in sharp contrast, nothing approaching consensus has yet emerged regarding the best procedural method with which to resolve individual claims of employment discrimination. Instead, while countries have struggled, individually, to devise processes that meet a variety of needs, none seems to be satisfied with its efforts. Litigation is slow, costly, and impersonal. Informal processes such as conciliation, mediation, arbitration, or administrative processes aim to be faster and cheaper, but may not result in adequate enforcement of discrimination …

Using Arbitration To Eliminate Consumer Class Actions: Efficient Business Practice Or Unconscionable Abuse?, Jean R. Sternlight, Elizabeth J. Jensen

Scholarly Works

Companies are increasingly drafting arbitration clauses worded to prevent consumers from bringing class actions against them in either litigation or arbitration. If one looks at the form contracts she receives regarding her credit card, cellular phone, land phone, insurance policies, mortgage, and so forth, most likely, the majority of those contracts include arbitration clauses, and many of those include prohibitions on class actions. Companies are seeking to use these clauses to shield themselves from class action liability, either in court or in arbitration.

This article argues that while the unconscionability doctrine offers some protections, case-by-case adjudication is a costly means …

Symposium Introduction, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Adr Is Here: Preliminary Reflections On Where It Fits In A System Of Justice, Jean R. Sternlight

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Rise And Spread Of Mandatory Arbitration As A Substitute For The Jury Trial, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

THE CIVIL JURY trial is fast disappearing from our legal landscape, and one important reason for its disappearance is the rapid growth of mandatory arbitration. Yet, the imposition of mandatory arbitration eliminates the civil jury, and often this elimination is not made through a knowing, voluntary, or intelligent waiver. As I have argued elsewhere in greater detail, unless federal courts are generally willing to abandon the Seventh Amendment "knowing/voluntary/intelligent" civil jury trial waiver standard, they need to significantly revise their approach to mandatory arbitration clauses. If a given state allows the civil jury trial right to be waived through a …

Forgetfulness, Fuzziness, Functionality, Fairness, And Freedom In Dispute Resolution: Serving Dispute Resolution Through Adjudication, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Should An Arbitration Provision Trump The Class Action? No: Permitting Companies To Skirt Class Actions Through Mandatory Arbitration Would Be Dangerous And Unwise, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

Companies are deliberately using mandatory arbitration to prevent consumers and employces from joining together in class actions. As Carroll Neesemann has explained, eliminating the class action is a "strong incentive" of those companies that impose the requirement of arbitration on consumers and employees. Mr. Neesemann defends this phenomenon, and his article offers companies and their attorneys some tips on how to effectively use arbitration to insulate themselves from the threat of class actions. By contrast, this essay argues that it is dangerous and unwise to permit companies to use mandatory arbitration to exempt themselves from class action suits.

"An Overwhelming Question" About Non-Formal Procedure, Thomas O. Main

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Is The U.S. Out On A Limb? Comparing The U.S. Approach To Mandatory Consumer And Employment Arbitration To That Of The Rest Of The World, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

After quickly summarizing the landscape of mandatory arbitration both within and without the United States, this article will consider why mandatory arbitration is treated so disparately, whether it is problematic that approaches to mandatory arbitration are so varied among countries, and what the differing jurisdictions can and should learn from one another. The article concludes that the United States Congress should be very concerned with the fact that we are treating mandatory arbitration more permissively than other countries. I, along with many others, have previously presented many arguments for why mandatory arbitration is problematic. Our outlier status on this issue …