Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons^™

Las Vegas Police Protective Association V. City Of Las Vegas 142 Nev. Adv. Op. 41 (Jun. 03, 2026), Adrienne Jack-Sands

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The district court may determine whether a dispute is arbitrable, but the arbitrator must be the one to evaluate whether procedural prerequisites have been satisfied and adjudicate the underlying issue.

Lennar Communities Nevada, Llc, And Greystone Nevada, Llc V. Pamela Whalen, 142 Nev. Adv. Op. 29 (Apr. 16, 2026), Christianne White

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Courts should employ a totality of the circumstances test when determining if a party acted inconsistently with the right to arbitrate.

Juvenile Justice Probation Officers Association V. Clark County, 123 Nev. Adv. Op. 45 (Apr. 09, 2026), Anastasia Vinson

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

In Juvenile Justice Probation Officers Association v. Clark County, the Nevada Supreme Court held that a narrow arbitration clause is limited to its terms and cannot cover a statutory PREA termination outside its defined scope.

Behind Every Case Is A Conversation, Donna Shestowsky

Nevada Law Journal

Lawyers play a central role in guiding clients through critical decisions that shape the trajectory of litigation. Among the most consequential of these is the choice of procedures by which disputes will be resolved—whether through trial, mediation, arbitration, or other mechanisms. Despite the weight of these decisions, legal scholarship offers little guidance on how lawyers might structure conversations about procedural options. This Article seeks to address that gap by drawing on empirical research from psychology and related disciplines to develop recommendations for educating and counseling clients—particularly those with little or no prior exposure to the civil justice system—so that they …

When We Don’T Get Community Right In Restorative Justice Spaces: Cancel Culture And Failure To Transform, Aparna Polavarapu

Scholarly Works

This Article argues that community is a central but deeply misunderstood feature of restorative justice. Restorative justice asks us to understand harm as a break in relationship that creates obligations for the person harmed, the person who caused harm, and the community. Community is theorized to play a key role in working towards reintegration and social change, both goals of restorative justice. Yet in practice, community is often misused or underused in ways that weaken these goals. Practitioners are observing an increase in cancel culture actions by groups that claim affinity with restorative and transformative justice. However, by weaponizing the …

Olympic Dreams Dashed: Arbitrating Seconds, Grams, Identity, And Time At The Paris Olympic Games 2024, Maureen A. Weston

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Restorative Justice In Legal Education, Lindsey Pointer, Aparna Polavarapu, Alanna Ojibway

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Truth. Regardless Of Reconciliation?, Michael Moffitt

Nevada Law Journal

Formal responses to historical injustices have typically taken one of two fundamental forms in the past hundred years. The first form is familiar to legal systems—a retributive process in which an adjudicative body measures the conduct of alleged wrongdoers against some set of established standards (think Nuremberg Trials). The second form is often labeled “alternative,” particularly in Western legal systems, despite its long history and increasing prevalence within the past few generations. It focuses on broad inclusion, shared responsibility for the outcomes, and a forward-looking perspective on the next steps beyond or in lieu of traditional criminal sanctions (think South …

The New Yellow Dog Contract: Mandatory Arbitration Agreements And Collective Action Waivers In The Aftermath Of Epic Systems, Eric Lundy

Nevada Law Journal Forum

Since the 1980s, the Supreme Court has consistently found arbitration agreements in employment contracts to be enforceable, citing a strong national policy favoring arbitration. This line of cases came to its apogee in 2018 with Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis. The Court held that the statutory right to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of mutual aid or protection did not confer upon employees the right to bring class actions against their employer when they had signed an arbitration agreement with a collective action waiver. While the Court’s decision was widely criticized in the academic community, it sent a …

Alternative Evidence Rules For Arbitration, Henry Zhuhao Wang

Nevada Law Journal

Today, arbitration is broadly used for resolving civil disputes domestically and internationally. It is a subject so popular in practice that calling it an “alternative dispute resolution” may in fact be a misnomer. Regarding the taking of evidence in arbitration, the cliché is that no rules apply, and that arbitrators have the ultimate authority. In practice, too many arbitrators simply let everything in, no matter how prejudicial, cumulative, incredible, suspect, or otherwise useless, for fear that ruling out anything may lead to vacatur.

This Article probes into the importance and feasibility of having evidence rules in arbitration. It argues that …

Political Polarization: Psychological Explanations And Potential Solutions, Jennifer K. Robbennolt

Nevada Law Journal

Deep disagreement can characterize public and private discussions of controversial policy issues. Differences in approach, understanding of the facts, and perceptions of each other can lead to contentious and unproductive debate, entrenched animosity, and the escalation of conflict. The psychological roots of these patterns are deep. But psychology also offers some lessons about how we might foster more constructive engagement across difference.

Community Accountability, M. Eve Hanan, Lydia Nussbaum

Scholarly Works

This Essay takes a close look at how the idea of community accountability is used in current transformative and restorative justice efforts, situating the concept within the history of delegalization, or a collection of different efforts to reclaim conflict resolution and public safety from the state. In fact, these efforts to reclaim the authority and means of redressing harm from legal systems may track earlier efforts to reclaim dispute resolution from the state. In Part I, we situate both transformative and restorative justice movements in the history of delegalization while noting essential differences between the objectives of these two reform …

In-Person Or Via Technology?: Drawing On Psychology To Choose And Design Dispute Resolution Processes, Jean R. Sternlight, Jennifer K. Robbennolt

Scholarly Works

Covid-19 fostered a remote technology boom in the world of dispute resolution. Pre-pandemic, adoption of technical innovation in dispute resolution was slow moving. Some attorneys, courts, arbitrators, mediators and others did use technology, including telephone, e-mail, text, or videoconferences, or more ambitious online dispute resolution (ODR). But, to the chagrin of technology advocates, many conducted most dispute resolution largely in-person. The pandemic effectively put the emerging technological efforts on steroids. Even the most technologically challenged quickly began to replace in-person dispute resolution with videoconferencing, texting, and other technology. Courts throughout the world canceled all or most in-person trials, hearings, conferences, …

Carrie Menkel-Meadow: Leading Us Toward Justice And Peace, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

This Essay explores how Carrie Menkel-Meadow's life and work have both highlighted the path of "And"-showing and explaining that it is not only possible but also desirable to seek justice as well as peace, to be both activist and neutral. Of course, tensions will remain. Regarding particular issues in specific moments we all must decide which path we can and should take. Which activism is best, and which goes too far? With whom can we or should we negotiate, and when should we instead say, "I can't negotiate with this person or group"? When should we talk and listen, and …

Pouring A Little Psychological Cold Water On Online Dispute Resolution, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

This Article examines the strengths and weaknesses of ODR (online dispute resolution) from a psychological perspective. It makes five main points:

(1) The phrase ODR is too broad to be useful. This phrase encompasses many different kinds of technology (computer, phone, video, mechanical pencil), many different kinds of dispute resolution (litigation, negotiation, arbitration, mediation), disputes arising in many different contexts (consumer, family, property, tax, employment, etc.), and many different roles (technology as neutral, technology as aide to neutral, technology as aide to disputant, etc.). In order to consider whether and when ODR can be most useful we will need to …

Justice In A Brave New World?, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

As science fiction has become reality, we should consider the implications of our new technologies for our system of justice. In addition to DNA, we are now regularly using cameras, geo-tracking, facial recognition software, brain scans, computers, and much more to discern and record our physical and mental surroundings. Existing technology and more we cannot yet imagine will increasingly take the place of often unreliable evidence, such as that provided by eyewitnesses. Yet, we have given far too little thought as to how these advances should impact our civil and criminal dispute resolution systems.

Historically, many justice systems have emphasized …

Adr, Dynamic (In)Justice, And Achieving Access: A Foreclosure Crisis Case Study, Lydia Nussbaum

Scholarly Works

This Article proceeds in two parts. Part I argues for a dynamic, rather than fixed, conception of access to justice. It then explores how ADR processes, when placed in this dynamic framework, can create new forms of injustice and intensify preexisting ones. Part II presents a case study from the foreclosure crisis to illustrate how the features of ADR processes are especially well suited to respond to dynamic injustices. It further demonstrates how ADR design must evolve to respond to the dynamic system of (in)justice in which ADR processes operate.

Global Carceral Feminism And Domestic Violence: What The West Can Learn From Reconciliation In Uganda, Aparna Polavarapu

Scholarly Works

Around the world, policies and laws emphasizing criminal justice have dominated domestic violence interventions for decades. In the United States, certain feminist advocates worked with state actors to develop a primarily criminal justice response to domestic violence. Western influence in the international human rights movement has spread this approach around the world, leading it to become the key means of addressing violence against women. However, critics argue that the overreliance on the criminal justice system is a key failure of the anti-domestic-violence movement, with some referring to the strain of feminism promoting prosecution as "carceral feminism. " The carceral approach …

Mandatory Arbitration Stymies Progress Towards Justice In Employment Law: Where To, #Metoo?, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

Today our employment law provides workers with far more protection than once existed with respect to hiring, firing, salary, and workplace conditions. Despite these gains, continued progress towards justice is currently in jeopardy due to companies’ imposition of mandatory arbitration on their employees. By denying their employees access to court, companies are causing employment law to stultify. This impacts all employees, but particularly harms the most vulnerable and oppressed members of our society for whom legal evolution is most important. If companies can continue to use mandatory arbitration to eradicate access to court, where judges are potentially influenced by social …

Mediator Burnout, Lydia Nussbaum

Scholarly Works

Being a mediator is hard work Mediators must make meaningful connections with individuals without over-stepping bounds of impartiality, manage emotions without becoming emotionally invested, and empower decision-making without undermining self-determination. Decades of research into occupational stress, also known as "burnout," indicates that mediators not only are susceptible to burnout, but also that the symptoms of burnout undermine fundamental principles of quality mediation. For example, a burned-out mediator may exhibit narrow and uncreative thinking, diminished capacity to regulate emotions, compromised decision-making, and deficits in attention and memory.

The prospect of mediator burnout not only threatens the quality of mediation, but it …

Mediation: An Unlikely Villain, Thomas O. Main

Scholarly Works

Professor Main argues that the modem ADR movement (and mediation in particular), rather than some (other) ideology, beget the pleading and summary judgment standards that exemplify contemporary practice and procedure in the fourth era in the history of American civil procedure. The other key reforms of the fourth era-the vanishing trial, the embrace of ADR, judicial case management and the pursuit of settlement by any means necessary-are more obviously tied to the modem ADR movement. Blame for all of the key fourth era reforms is thus traceable to the modern ADR movement. This, in turn, matters because it is generally …

Reconciling Fault Lines In Arbitration And Redefining Arbitration Through The Broader Lens Of Procedure, Imre S. Szalai

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

"Arbitration Schmarbitration": Examining The Benefits And Frustrations Of Defining The Process, Jean R. Sternlight

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Re-Inventing Arbitration: How Expanding The Scope Of Arbitration Is Re-Shaping Its Form And Blurring The Line Between Private And Public Adjudication, Deborah R. Hensler, Damira Khatam

Nevada Law Journal

Contemporary academic research and scholarship are highly specialized. Legal scholarship on arbitration reflects this trend. There is extensive literature on domestic arbitration jurisprudence, on international commercial arbitration practice, and on investor-state arbitration procedure, and there are debates about the appropriate use of arbitration within all of these domains. But few of the participants in these debates are attentive to developments outside their own domains, and there are few examples of scholarship surveying trends across the three domains. Undertaking that analysis reveals important similarities in the challenges facing arbitration in each domain and in the responses to these challenges. Looking across …

Arbitration's Dark Shadow, Benjamin P. Edwards

Nevada Law Journal

Arbitration has expanded broadly, removing disputes involving entire industries from judicial review. The absence of judicial review plunges these disputes and industries into the shadow. This shadow causes the public to lose sight of vital information about industry practices and arbitrators to gradually lose sight of the law. Federal intervention may be necessary to restore consumer protections, including customer choice, to bring these disputes out of the shadows.

Evolution Of The Arbitration Forum As A Response To Mandatory Arbitration, Teresa J. Verges

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Arbitration, What Is It Good For?, Thomas O. Main

Nevada Law Journal

In the lead piece of this symposium, Hensler and Khatam bring into relief two paradoxes in contemporary arbitration policy and practice.1 First, arbitration is beset by hyperspecialization into segmented domains, yet is plagued by reforms that transcend those boundaries. Second, arbitration seeks all the virtue of formal adjudication without the process, yet process is the principal virtue of formal adjudication.

Hensler and Khatam invite readers to think broadly about contemporary arbitration policy and practice. Accepting that invitation, I briefly explore four areas of inquiry that can be reduced to the interrogatives Why?, What?, When?, and Who?, respectively. All four questions …

Response: Public Litigation, Private Arbitration?, David L. Noll

Nevada Law Journal

How should disputes be allocated between litigation and arbitration? Given strong incentives for many actors to arbitrate everything, the question turns fundamentally on the scope of arbitration under the applicable law. In Re-Inventing Arbitration: How Expanding the Scope of Arbitration Is Re-Shaping Its Form and Blurring the Line Between Private and Public Adjudication, Professor Deborah Hensler and Damira Khatam posit that the ‘public’ or ‘private’ nature of a dispute provides the key to whether it belongs in arbitration. While arbitration of private disputes is ok, disputes with “public policy dimensions” belong in the courts. Hensler and Khatam therefore suggest that …

The Blurring Of The Public/Private Distrinction Or The Collapse Of A Category? The Story Of Investment Arbitration, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Metaphysics Of Arbitration: A Reply To Hensler And Khatam, Hiro N. Aragaki

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.