Law Commons^™

The Metastasization Of Mandatory Arbitration, Alexander J.S. Colvin

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Mandatory arbitration procedures have expanded to become a common feature of American employment relations. This article presents the results of a new original survey examining the extent of mandatory arbitration, where it is most commonly used, and which employees it is most likely to affect. Overall, 53.9 percent of private sector business establishments, representing 56.2 percent of nonunion employees, have mandatory arbitration procedures. Larger employers are more likely to have adopted mandatory arbitration, as are workplaces with lower paid employees. Mandatory arbitration is particularly common in California, North Carolina, and Texas, but is widespread nationwide. Class action waivers are included …

Politics, Disclosure, And State Law Solutions For 501(C)(4) Organizations, Linda Sugin

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, there has been an explosion in section 501(c)(4) organizations active in politics. Unable to effectively process applications, the IRS mishandled organizations with conservative political ties, producing a scandal from which the agency has yet to recover. It proposed regulations that would have helped it more easily determine eligibility for 501(c)(4) exemption, but after massive public outcry, the regulations were withdrawn. No new regulations will be proposed before the 2016 presidential election.

Given the federal government’s inability to address the problem of dark money politicking by 501(c)(4) organizations through …

Legal Uncertainty And Aberrant Contracts: The Choice Of Law Clause, William J. Woodward Jr.

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Legal uncertainty about the applicability of local consumer protection can destroy a consumer’s claim or defense within the consumer arbitration environment. What is worse, because the consumer arbitration system cannot accommodate either legal complexity or legal uncertainty, the tendency will be to resolve cases in the way the consumer’s form contract dictates, that is, in favor of the drafter. To demonstrate this effect and advocate statutory change, this article focuses on fee-shifting statutes in California and several other states. These statutes convert very common one-way fee-shifting terms (consumer pays business’s attorneys fees if business wins but not the other way …

The Role Of Innocence Commissions: Error Discovery, Systemic Reform Or Both?, Kent Roach

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article examines the role of innocence commissions as emerging criminal justice institutions. It draws a distinction between commissions devoted to the correction of errors in individual cases and commissions which make systemic reform recommendations in an effort to prevent wrongful convictions in future cases. The British and Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission are examined as examples of the former type of commission while Canadian public inquiries and commissions in Illinois, California and Virginia are examined as examples of the latter type of commission. Innocence commissions have had difficulties combining error correction and …