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Michael A Helfand

Selected Works

Arbitration

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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Future Of Religious Arbitration In The United States: Looking Through A Pluralist Lens, Michael A. Helfand Dec 2017

The Future Of Religious Arbitration In The United States: Looking Through A Pluralist Lens, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

In recent years, religious arbitration has received increasing attention both in the American press and academy. For some, this attention is driven by concern that state enforcement of decisions issued by religious tribunals has the power to undermine the objectives of the U.S. legal system. For others, it is driven by a recognition that religious arbitration enables communities to enhance their process of dispute resolution by ensuring that it comports with shared religious principles and values. And, as is often the case, both perspectives contain important elements of truth. As a paradigmatic legal plurality institution, religious arbitration has the capacity …

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Beit Din's Gap-Filling Function: Using Beit Din To Protect Your Client, Michael A. Helfand Dec 2013

Beit Din's Gap-Filling Function: Using Beit Din To Protect Your Client, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

This article considers how rabbinical courts play an important gap-filling role by providing parties with a forum to adjudicate a subset of religious disputes that could not be resolved in court. Under current constitutional doctrine, civil courts cannot adjudicate disputes that turn on religious doctrine and practice. By contrast, rabbinical courts can resolve such disputes--and the decisions of rabbinical courts can then be enforced by civil courts even as those same civil courts could not resolve the dispute in the first instance. In this way, rabbinical courts--like other religious arbitration tribunals--fill a void created by constitutional law, ensuring that parties …

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