Law Commons^™

Crystals, Mud, Bapcpa, And The Structure Of Bankruptcy Decisionmaking, R. Wilson Freyermuth

Faculty Publications

A critical feature of any legal system is its formal dispute resolution mechanism. From the perspective of a transactions lawyer, the dispute resolution process should be structured to accomplish (or at least contribute positively toward) doctrinal clarity.

Transformed, Not Transcended: The Role Of Extrajudicial Dispute Resolution In Antebellum Kentucky And New Jersey, Carli N. Conklin

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to explore the applicability of that conclusion to two states not studied by Horwitz: Kentucky and New Jersey. The study of Kentucky, a state that was largely agricultural in the antebellum period, will provide a case study for the argument that the destruction of arbitration in antebellum America was mainly due to a merchant-lawyer alliance.

Modernizing Security In Rents: The New Uniform Assignment Of Rents Act, R. Wilson Freyermuth

Faculty Publications

This article explains the provisions of the UARA and encourages its prompt adoption in states that presently lack comprehensive statutes governing security interests in rents.

Introduction To Vanishing Trial Symposium, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

This symposium shows that "vanishing trial" phenomena touch an extremely broad range of issues including transformations of society, courts, dispute resolution procedures, and even the nature of knowledge. These phenomena relate to decisions by litigants in particular cases, court systems, national policy, and international relations. This subject is too large and complex for any symposium to analyze fully, especially at this early stage of analysis. This symposium makes an important contribution to this study, with theories and evidence about the existence, nature, and extent of reductions in trials and similar proceedings. It elaborates a range of theories about possible causes …

Confidentiality In Arbitration: Beyond The Myth, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

Many people assume that arbitration is private and confidential. But is that assumption accurate? This article is the first to explore that question in the important context of whether arbitration communications can be discovered and admitted into evidence in other legal proceedings - a question that is just beginning to show up in the cases. It first surveys the federal and state statutory and case law, finding that arbitration communications in fact are generally discoverable and admissible. It then considers the normative desirability of discovering and admitting arbitration communications evidence, concluding that the free discovery and admissibility of arbitration communications …

The Explained Award Of Damocles: Protection Or Peril In Securities Arbitration, Jill I. Gross

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

NASD's proposed rule change requiring arbitrators to provide written explanations in arbitration awards upon the customers' request (the “explained award proposal”), which was published for public comment in July 2005, is the clearest example of NASD's proposing a rule change in response to investors' complaints. “We have found that investors want to know more about how a panel reaches its decision,” stated NASD Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert R. Glauber in announcing the explained award proposal. “By giving investors the option of requiring a written explanation of an arbitration panel's decision, we will increase investor confidence in the fairness …

It's About The Relationship: Collaborative Law In The Employment Context, Marcia L. Mccormick

All Faculty Scholarship

Work is central to American life and drives us in fundamental ways. And the workplace, as a result, dominates our lives. We are spending ever greater amounts of time in the workplace and less time in civic and social engagements. As a consequence, our relationships at work have become so significant that they are nearly as important to us as our family relationships. In fact, the employment relationship is similar to the family relationship in the emotional support from coworkers it can provide and in the financial support it provides. Because the employment relationship is so common and psychologically so …

Designer Trials, Elizabeth G. Thornburg

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article considers the intersection of freedom of contract and the trials that have not vanished. Could contracting parties effectively agree in advance of a dispute that any litigation of the case will comply with certain rules? Would such an agreement be enforced even in a contract of adhesion? If so, parties with sufficient bargaining leverage could design away many of the characteristics of litigation that they find unappealing, without the need to resort to private processes. The result: a designer trial with the procedural deck stacked in favor of the party with the greatest pre-dispute bargaining power.

Such a …

Demand For A Jury Trial And The Selection Of Cases For Trial, Joni Hersch

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This paper uses a unique data set to examine how parties in civil litigation choose whether to demand a jury trial or to waive this right and whether trial forum influences the probability of trial versus settlement. Plaintiffs are more likely to demand trial by jury when juries are relativety more favorable to plaintiffs in similar cases and jury trials are relatively less costly than bench trials. Cases in which jury trials are demanded are 5.5 percentage points more ikely to settle without a trial than cases in which jury trials are waived. This differential settlement rate by potential trial …

Securities Mediation: Dispute Resolution For The Individual Investor, Jill I. Gross

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this article will provide a brief history of ADR in the securities industry (primarily arbitration), and then will describe the emergence of mediation as an alternative to arbitration. Part II will explore the state and federal statutory regulations that arguably govern the securities mediation process, and their impact on procedural and substantive justice. In particular, this section will review the applicability to and impact on securities mediation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (1934 Act), the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), and state mediation statutes, including the Uniform Mediation Act. In this section, I will argue that …

Mediating In The Shadow Of Australian Law: Structural Influences On Adr, Nadja Alexander

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Mediation has grown rapidly in many Anglophone jurisdictions such as USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and England. The current state of mediation practice in many of these jurisdictions can be traced back to the establishment of community justice centres in the 1970s and 1980s. Mediation is practised in the private sector as well as in a wide range of court-referred programs. In many common law jurisdictions mediation is no longer a form of alternative dispute resolution, it has become primary dispute resolution.

Research-Informed Models For Communicating The Value Of Court-Connected Alternative Dispute Resolution For Public Funding, Kevin Dye

Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration Publications

The purpose of framing the research in the following models is to assist the court and its court-connected mediation programs in their ongoing dialogue with the funding decision-makers in addressing the question: Is state funding of community mediation centers and court ADR generally a worthwhile investment? As a means of setting forth components of an analytic framework, the following simplified financial models are offered to draw out salient aspects of the nature of the investment. The simplified models are employed primarily for the purpose of illustrating the investment in terms of classic financial models familiar to a budget analyst. These …

Enforcement Of Arbitral Awards Against Foreign States Or State Agencies, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

Britain's Lord Denning once said that “as a moth is drawn to the light, so is a litigant drawn to the United States.” Certainly, as a pro-arbitration state and a signatory to various international conventions concerning the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, the United States seems a natural place to bring an action to enforce an arbitral award against a foreign state or state agency. However, suing a sovereign has not traditionally been a simple task in the United States or elsewhere. Most nations grant foreign states the presumption of immunity, thus denying that their domestic courts have jurisdiction to …

The Democratic Legitimacy Of Government-Related Dispute Resolution, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

The elective branches get most of the attention when we think about democracy. But it's important to remember that one of the things that a democratic government provides is a number of structures by which disputes may be resolved peacefully. Indeed, voting itself is one way of resolving conflict at a societal level. In the United States, courts historically have been the starting point for the resolution of individual, and sometimes social, disputes. Courts would seem to exude a great deal of democratic legitimacy, but why, and under what conditions? And what about other methods of dispute resolution: How do …