Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons^™

Judicial Settlement-Seeking In Parenting Cases: A Mock Trial, Noel Semple

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This paper critically evaluates judicial mediation in parenting disputes by asking whether, and to what extent, it is in the best interests of the children involved. It begins by identifying several features that distinguish child custody and visitation disputes from other types of civil litigation, and which are relevant to the normative analysis of judicial mediation in this context. Next, this paper describes and evaluates three arguments that might be made against the use of judicial settlement-seeking to resolve custody and visitation disputes. This paper will conclude by arguing that facilitative mediation by non-judges has significant advantages over judicial settlement-seeking …

State Legislative Update, Molly Karcher, Alexandra Klaus, Ryan J. Nichols, Stanley A. Prenger

Journal of Dispute Resolution

As the use of collaborative law increases, the need for uniform laws to help facilitate this process across state lines grew. In February 2007, the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) began drafting an act to address this need. At the July 2009 meeting, the Uniform Collaborative Law Act (UCLA) was unanimously approved by the Commission and was subsequently submitted to the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates for approval. In March 2010, the house approved the amended act after the ULC made a few small changes per the house's recommendation. Since receiving ABA approval, the UCLA has been passed in …

Table Of Contents - Issue 2

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Table of Contents - Issue 2

Correcting A Flaw In The Arbitration Fairness Act, Imre Stephen Szalai

Journal of Dispute Resolution

The proposed Arbitration Fairness Act of 2013 will ban courts from enforcing arbitration agreements in the employment and consumer contexts. This law will protect America's employees and consumers by keeping the courthouse door open to critical civil rights, employment, and consumer protection litigation. However, the proposed Arbitration Fairness Act suffers from a subtle flaw: it is uncertain whether the law will apply to the states. This flaw, which arises from one of the greatest constitutional errors the Supreme Court has ever made, must be corrected in order to provide the broadest protection to millions of American employees and consumers, and …

Globalization And Financial Dispute Resolution: Examining Areas Of Convergence And Informed Divergence In Financial Adr, Shahla F. Ali

Journal of Dispute Resolution

The global reach of the financial crisis calls for renewed investigation on the impact of globalization on international legal practice. Part One of this paper examines the theoretical perspectives on the impact of globalization on international legal practice. Part Two provides a global review of financial dispute resolution programs, including arbitration models and ombudsman systems, developed to address the financial complaints of retail investors that intensified during and after the financial crisis. Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore and Hong Kong are featured because they each reflect either the ombudsman or arbitration model of financial dispute resolution. Part …

Order In The Desert: Law Abiding Behavior At Burning Man, Manuel A. Gomez

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This article is divided into four sections. Section I offers a general description of Burning Man, including its organizers, social structure, and demographics. Section I also describes the Burning Man community and other features that distinguish Burning Man from other mass-gathering events. Section II describes the layers of internal and external social control found at Burning Man, and how they operate at the event. These layers of control include different forms of official law enforcement as well as the intra-community dispute resolution mechanisms employed by the Rangers. In Section III, the core of the article discusses the shortcomings of external …

Class Action's Last Hope: The Argument For Federal Statutory Rights Preemption Of The Federal Arbitration Act: In Re American Express Merchants' Litigation, Matthew Reddish

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This note will examine the history behind several recent federal decisions on class arbitration as well as federal antitrust laws and how antitrust laws should be enforced in the shadow of the FAA.

Waiving Goodbye To Arbitration: Factoring Prejudice When A Party Delays Assertion Of Its Contractual Right To Arbitrate: Elliot V. Kb Home N.C., Inc., Kristen Sanocki

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This note addresses the lawsuit described above, Elliott v. KB Home N.C., Inc., concerning whether KB Home waived its contractual right to arbitration by waiting three years to assert that right, which ultimately prejudiced a class of plaintiffs pursuing litigation against it. After examining how North Carolina courts decide whether to compel arbitration, this note will analyze the four-factor test North Carolina courts use to determine whether a party has sat on its right to arbitrate for too long, subjecting itself to waiver of arbitration. Finally, this note contends that North Carolina's four-factor test, as opposed to a bright-line rule, …

When Regulations And Arbitration Awards Collide: Potential Difficulties For Arbitrators And Parties: Bangor Gas Co., Llc V. H.Q. Energy Serv. U.S. Inc., Greg Mitchell

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Many commercial transactions are complex. The increasing presence of both arbitration and administrative regulations are part of what creates this complexity. It is thus possible that parties to a commercial transaction will find themselves in arbitration over a dispute involving regulations. This note will explore the potential difficulties parties and arbitrators face when arbitration awards and regulations collide. The difficulties for parties include grounds for vacatur that are either nonexistent or hard to meet, and potentially being forced to choose between violating a regulation or not complying with the award. Additionally, arbitrators face difficulties in fashioning awards that comply with …

There Has Been A Misconcepcion: The Faa Does Not Foster The Waiver Of Statutory Rights: Reyes V. Liberman Broad, Inc., Joanna L. Byrne

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This paper first discusses the particular facts and proceedings in Reyes. Next, it will discuss the complicated legal landscape that affects the interpretation of class arbitration waivers in California. Then, this paper will analyze the California Court of Appeals' rationale for its holding in Reyes. Next, this paper will construct an argument in favor of allowing employees to maintain bargaining rights in some circumstances, despite the existence of a class arbitration waiver in an employment contract. Finally, this paper will explore outside factors that may affect the Supreme Court of California's ability to render a decision and analyze how the …

The Bible Of Labor Arbitration: Tribute To Professor Frank Elkouri, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Other Publications

Each of the three traditional learned professions has had its “bible.” Divines had the progenitor, the Holy Bible itself; medical doctors had Gray’s Anatomy; and lawyers had Blackstone. What could be more fitting than that the sprightly newcomer to the ranks of the learned professions—labor arbitration—should also have its own bible: Elkouri & Elkouri, How Arbitration Works? But while Blackstone, Gray’s, and perhaps even the King James Version have largely been supplanted by sleeker, more contemporary models, nothing of the sort has happened to Elkouri. It just sails on majestically from one edition to another, now heading into its seventh.

Doe V. Supreme Sharia Court Of Appeals, Edna Arbel, Miriam Naor, Noam Sohlberg

Translated Opinions

[This abstract is not part of the Court's opinion and is provided for the reader's convenience. It has been translated from a Hebrew version prepared by Nevo Press Ltd. and is used with its kind permission.]

A petition against the decision of the Sharia Court of Appeals that it is not possible to appoint a female arbitrator under Section 130 of the Ottoman Family Law for divorce proceedings conducted before the court. According to the Sharia court, Section 130 of the Ottoman Family Law is based on the Maliki interpretation. Since the Malikis require that the arbitrators be men, women …

To Skin A Cat: Qui Tam Actions As A State Legislative Response To Concepcion, Janet Cooper Alexander

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Supreme Court's decision in Concepcion is widely regarded as heralding the demise of small-claims class actions whenever contracts of adhesion are involved in the transaction-which means for virtually all consumer and employment claims. Amending the Federal Arbitration Act to overturn Concepcion would be a relatively simple exercise in legislative drafting, but in the current political climate such efforts are unlikely to succeed. Thus far, proposed federal corrective legislation has failed to pass, and federal agency regulation of class waivers has been lacking. State legislatures might have the political ability to pass corrective legislation, but virtually all state limitations on …

Concepcion's Pro-Defendant Biasing Of The Arbitration Process: The Class Counsel Solution, David Korn, David Rosenberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

By mandating that numerous plaintiffs litigate their common question claims separately in individual arbitrations rather than jointly in class action arbitrations, the Supreme Court in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion entrenched a potent structural and systemic bias in favor of defendants. The bias arises from the parties' divergent stakes in the outcome of the common question litigation in individual arbitrations: each plaintiff will only invest to maximize the value of his or her own claim, but the defendant has an incentive to protect its entire exposure and thus will have a classwide incentive to invest more in contesting common questions. …

The Majority Approach To Arbitration Waiver: A Workable Test Or A License For Litigants To Play Games With The Courts?, James Savage

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “The freedom of parties to agree to arbitrate their disputes is enshrined by contract law and federal law. By inserting a mandatory arbitration clause in a contract, both parties agree that, should a dispute arise between them, they will not bring the matter to court. Instead, they agree to submit any disputes to a mutually-agreed-to third party, such as the American Arbitration Association; this third-party acts like a judge and resolves the dispute. Arbitration has many advantages, such as reducing the cost and increasing the efficiency of dispute resolution. Because of these reduced costs and greater efficiency, businesses can …

Arbitration Case Law Update 2013, Jill I. Gross

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The U.S. Supreme Court and lower state and federal courts continue to decide cases under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) at an astounding rate. This chapter summarizes Supreme Court opinions over the past year that interpret the FAA, as well as selected lower court decisions that apply the FAA and could have an impact on securities arbitration practice.

Summary Of Sylver V. Regents Bank, N.A., 129 Nev. Adv. Op. 30, Kelli Michelle Devaney

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Consolidated appeals from a district court order confirming an arbitration award and an amended judgment and order of sale, in which the Court considered two issues: (1) whether an arbitration awards was obtained through undue means and (2) whether the arbitrator’s refusal to void a loan in the underlying dispute constituted a manifest disregard for the law.

Stop! In The Name Of Ethics, Before You Break My Bank Account: The "Conflicting" Rights Guaranteed To Parties In International Arbitration By Hrvatska V. Slovenia And Rompetrol V. Romania, And Their Potential As Tactical Weapons, Misbah Farid

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

International arbitration offers many rights, such as the right to counsel of choice and the right to an independent and impartial arbitration panel and proceeding. However, these guarantees, while they ensure the rights of parties and allow international arbitration to be a viable dispute resolution forum, can also be used as weapons. The viability of these rights as weapons is what reconciles the seemingly conflicting cases of Hrvatska v. Slovenia and Rompetrol v. Romania. Hrvatska sets forth an arbitration tribunal's inherent right to ensure and regulate the proceedings so as to guarantee the rights offered by international arbitration, while …

Investor-State Contracts, Host-State “Commitments” And The Myth Of Stability In International Law, Lise Johnson, Oleksandr Volkov

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

A new de facto rule has emerged in international investment law that emphasizes and prioritizes investment stability, imposing liability on host governments for a wide range of public interest measures deemed to interfere with “commitments” given to foreign investors by host governments. The arbitral decisions from which this new rule has emanated in treaty-based investment disputes resolve types of claims that have long been familiar to domestic jurisdictions. Yet, as this article uncovers through a comparative law analysis of factually similar cases decided under United States law over roughly the past 200 years, the approaches taken and pronouncements issued by …

Adequately Representing Groups, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

Adequate representation and preclusion depend on whether the courts treat a litigant as part of a group experiencing an aggregate harm or as a distinct person suffering individual injuries. And though a vast literature about adequate representation exists in the class-action context, it thins dramatically when contemplating other forms of group litigation, such as parens patriae actions and multidistrict litigation. As class actions have gradually fallen into disfavor and attorneys and commentators seek alternative means for resolving group harms, the relative clarity of Rule 23 wanes. How should courts evaluate adequate representation in parens patriae actions and in multidistrict litigation? …