On Tuesday, NPR’s afternoon news show All Things Considered aired a piece on arbitration.  The piece is interesting, but not favorable.  It shares several compelling stories – a female Halliburton employee who was raped by co-workers in Iraq and has to arbitrate her claims against the company, the Public Citizen study where consumers lost 94% of the time, and the story of Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard law professor, who has not been picked as an arbitration for the National Arbitration Forum after she found in favor of a claimant against a credit card company. 

Besides these interesting items, another thing in the article stuck out for me.  The article states that Lisa Rickard, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform, says that making arbitration voluntary will lead to its extinction.  Personally, I don’t agree with this opinion because of arbitration’s long history going back into the middle ages and its extensive use in collective bargaining, business matters including international business, and in the construction industry. 

To read the story, go here.

Hat tip to Kelly Browe Olson.