The revived Arbitrate.com website at https://www.arbitrate.com/index.cfm provides fresh content regarding arbitration with news items as well as original and curated articles from new and seasoned arbitration voices.  It also includes a web series called “The Arbitration Conversation.”  This is a periodic web series where Prof. Amy J. Schmitz interviews leading thinkers in arbitration from around … Continue reading New Resource for Arbitration →

The AAA-ICDR Foundation has established a new grant opportunity that will award one or two grants, up to a total of $250,000 each, to support programs that will address either of the following: Racial Injustice Response: Create innovative and additional ways to engage citizens in meaningful dialogue with one another and/or with government authorities including … Continue reading AAA-ICDR Foundation New Grant Program for Racial Injustice Initiatives →

Calling all environmentally-oriented problem-solvers! I am pleased to announce that my law school (Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University) is launching the first annual Environmental Law & Policy Hack Competition, and it is going virtual this year (of course!). Law school teams are invited to submit a proposal that analyzes and develops a … Continue reading Pace’s Environmental Law and Policy Problem-Solving Competition. →

Last week, the Arbitration Law Review, a journal published by students at Penn State Law’s University Park campus, hosted a symposium on Collective Bargaining and Adhesive Arbitration Agreements.  I had the honor of presenting my latest work (on class action waivers in broker-dealer employment agreements). The other panelists wereTheodore J. St. Antoine (Michigan), Stephen Ware … Continue reading Arbitration Law Review Symposium at Penn State Law →

Some of you may be interested in a new ethics opinion published late last week by the New York State Bar Association Committee on Professional Ethics addressing the ethical obligations of a lawyer acting as a mediator. Here is the summary: “A lawyer-mediator engaged in providing third-party neutral services is subject to Rule 2.4 but … Continue reading New NYS Ethics Opinion: Lawyer as Third-Party Neutral →

I am pleased to post this Call for Papers for a symposium entitled Decarbonizing America’s Electricity Infrastructure which is taking place next fall at Pace. The Call includes a request for papers related to renewable energy dispute resolution. Pace Environmental Law Review & Pace Energy and Climate Center,  Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace … Continue reading Call for Papers: Renewable energy dispute resolution included →

In this inaugural “ADR Scholarship Share,” Peter Reilly (Texas A&M) gathered together short (<100 words) descriptions of recent scholarly projects by our fellow ADR scholars, with links to those works that are available online.  It so exciting to read about all of the interesting work going on across the country (and the world) in our … Continue reading ADR Scholarship Share – Inaugural Issue →

  In honor of International Day of Climate Action (October 24), a group of law professors have announced the Pledge to Reduce Academic Marketing Waste, which seeks to address the routine and indiscriminate use of paper-based flyers, newsletters, offprints and postcards by law professors and law schools.  Most of this material is discarded without ever being read.  However, law … Continue reading Pledge to Reduce Academic Marketing Waste →

More than a decade ago, as courts began enforcing class action waivers in arbitration agreements, it grew more and more apparent to me that disputants with arbitrable claims of small dollar value would proceed under the respective forum’s small claims arbitration procedures. This warranted a renewed focus on whether those small claims procedures provided disputants … Continue reading CRAPP: A Strategy for Dispute Resolution Reform →

Earlier this week I attended a wonderful conference at Pepperdine Law School attended by 150 ADR legal educators and professionals, where we explored the legacy of the field of ADR and predicted its future. Co-sponsored by the Aggie (Texas A&M) DR Program as well as numerous other law school DR programs), the conference featured panels … Continue reading Conference on past, present and future of ADR at Pepperdine Law School →

Because most disputes between individual investors and their brokerage firms are arbitrated through FINRA’s Dispute Resolution forum, many legal issues impacting retail investors do not make their way through the courts but instead end up being resolved in a private forum with little transparency (i.e., awards are published but usually contain no reasons or explanations). … Continue reading Pace’s securities arbitration clinic students go to the SEC →

[Please excuse this interruption of the wonderful Israel reflections!] A few weeks ago, over at the Securities Arbitration Commentator blog, George Friedman posted a helpful summary of all the “anti-mandatory arbitration bills” that have been introduced by House and Senate democrats this year. You may be interested in reading it.