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Status And Contract In An Emerging Democracy: The Evolution Of Dispute Resolution In Ghana, Paul F. Kirgis

Faculty Law Review Articles

Ghana is one of the developing world’s success stories. The first sub-Saharan colony to gain independence, it is a stable democracy experiencing sustained economic growth. Yet as Ghana reaches for the material gains of participation in modern commercial life, its dual legal systems—the system of customary adjudication by traditional authorities and the formal court system—have come under increasing pressure. New legal developments have truncated the authority of traditional decisionmakers, while an overburdened court system lacks the resources to fill the resulting adjudicative gaps. To solve the problem, Ghana is now experimenting with a system of quasi-public dispute resolution, including contractual …

Family Mediation After Hendershott: The Case For Uniform Domestic Violence Screening And Opt-In Provision In Montana, Eduardo R.C. Capulong

Faculty Law Review Articles

In Hendershott v. Westphal, the Montana Supreme Court held that § 40-4-301(2) of the Montana Code Annotated absolutely bars mediation in family law cases involving domestic violence. Yet neither the Court nor the statute prescribes a method by which to screen for such cases. In this article, the author argues that a uniform, statewide screening method is the only way by which to implement this policy. The author also argues that Hendershott should be interpreted narrowly and Montana should allow parties to opt in to mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution. The Court's understanding of domestic violence …

Mediation And The Neocolonial Legal Order: Access To Justice And Self-Determination In The Philippines, Eduardo R.C. Capulong

Faculty Law Review Articles

In this article, the author examines how the process of U.S.-style alternative dispute resolution is unfolding in the Philippines, a former U.S. colony.

Drawing from representative case studies, Part I highlights emerging practices in the global South counter-hegemonic to the fundamentals of U.S.-style mediation.

Part II describes the Philippine community mediation experience, in particular the ideologies, structures, and practices of indigenous dispute resolution, the neighborhood justice system, and court-annexed mediation.

Part III discusses access to justice and self-determination as they relate specifically to community mediation in a postcolonial context.

Using qualitative research the author conducted in the Philippines in 2010, …

Arbitration, Bankruptcy And Public Policy: A Contractarian Analysis, Paul F. Kirgis

Faculty Law Review Articles

As arbitration agreements become more common, bankruptcy courts increasingly encounter arbitration agreements to which a bankruptcy debtor is a party. Bankruptcy judges must then determine whether to enforce an otherwise valid arbitration clause or to refuse enforcement and decide the underlying dispute themselves. To date, bankruptcy judges facing these issues have tended to see arbitrationa s a competing, quasi-judicialf orum. They typically refuse to enforce arbitration agreements when they find that bankruptcy policy would favor resolution in the bankruptcy proceeding instead of in some other adjudicative forum. Building on previous work, I contend in this article that arbitration is best …

Judicial Review And The Limits Of Arbitral Authority: Lessons From The Law Of Contract, Paul F. Kirgis

Faculty Law Review Articles

The Supreme Court simply stopped talking about the limits of arbitration as a mechanism for the adjudication of legal rights. Once the Court decided that any and all claims could be arbitrated, it funneled everything into the framework of the FAA, with its contractarian approach to arbitration. While it never expressly declared that arbitration of discrimination claims or consumer fraud claims fit within a contractarian model, as a practical matter, those claims were governed by the same rules that governed traditionally contractarian matters such as labor and commercial disputes. Most notably from my perspective, they all received the same extremely …

The Contractarian Model Of Arbitration And Its Implications For Judicial Review Of Arbitral Awards, Paul F. Kirgis

Faculty Law Review Articles

Those who favor the current system of virtually unlimited and unreviewable arbitration can forestall change—and even avoid engaging in a sustained policy discussion—by falling back on those defenses. While it is not possible to resolve the policy issues finally, it is possible to assess whether the principle of party autonomy, coupled with applicable legal doctrine, justifies the degree of deference courts have adopted. That is what I attempt in this Article. I argue that, at least in certain classes of cases, the principle of party autonomy requires greater judicial scrutiny of arbitral awards. I argue further that this result is …