FINRA is looking for arbitrators for its rosters in many areas of the country, particularly smaller urban areas. FINRA Dispute Resolution provides a forum for the resolution of securities-related disputes, including customer-broker, broker-firm employment disputes, and intra-industry disputes. For a chart of locations where arbitrator applicants are needed and information about how to apply, click … Continue reading FINRA Needs Arbitrators →

My law librarian just forwarded to me this link to an article in West’s newsletter Law Librarians containing very useful tips on researching arbitration awards through West databases.

Kudos to Pepperdine for obtaining a grant from FINRA’s Investor Education Foundation to start a clinic in which students represent investors with small claims in securities mediations and arbitrations. This is the first such clinic in the Southern California area, where many retirees have been desperate for free legal services in this specialized area. See … Continue reading Pepperdine to Launch Investor Advocacy Clinic →

Carrie Sperling (Arizona State) has posted on SSRN an article (to be published at 60 Catholic U. L. Rev. 1 (2010)), on the role of lawyers’ demand letters in negotiations, arguing that scholars have not integrated negotiation theory and legal writing practice when it comes to pre-negotiation demand letters. Here is the abstract: Lawyers frequently … Continue reading Sperling on the Role of Demand Letters in Negotiations →

Cross-posted from Securities Law Prof Blog (authored by Prof. Barbara Black, Dec. 3, 2010): Judge Jed Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) denied Goldman Sach’s motion to vacate a $20.580 million arbitration award obtained by the Official Unsecured Creditors’ Committee of Bayou Group on Nov. 8, 2010 and promised that a written opinion would follow.  The opinion was filed on Nov. … Continue reading SDNY on arbitration – “the wonderous alternative to the rule of reason” →

Oregon Law announced today that it has appointed Michael Moffitt, the law school’s associate dean for academic affairs, associate director for the Appropriate Dispute Resolution Center, and Orlando J. and Marian H. Hollis Professor of Law, to the post of Dean of the law school, effective July 2011. We here at Indisputably are very proud … Continue reading Congratulations to our very own Michael Moffitt – new Dean at Oregon Law →

Yesterday I taught my final class of the semester in my Mediation & Arbitration course. I have been teaching this class, or a version of it, six years in a row. Each year, I ask students to find and bring in to class a pre-dispute arbitration clause in a consumer or employment agreement to which … Continue reading The decline of unconscionable arbitration clause provisions? →

Last week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of FINRA arbitration to a customer of a broker-dealer on the grounds of waiver. In Louisiana Stadium Exposition District v. Merrill Lynch, 10-889-CV (Nov. 22, 2010), the Court affirmed a district court’s order denying a motion to compel arbitration on the grounds that the … Continue reading Second Circuit affirms denial of motion to compel FINRA arbitration on grounds of waiver →

For those of you ADR scholars out there interested in an academic position, here is the announcement: The University of Maryland School of Law seeks applicants for a faculty position in the field of Alternative Dispute Resolution. The faculty member must have a sincere interest in and commitment to clinical teaching.  The faculty member: 1) … Continue reading University of Maryland Law Hiring ADR Prof →

In a surprising but welcome development, FINRA announced today that it will file a rule proposal next month with the Securities and Exchange Commission to make permanent its Public Arbitrator Pilot Program, in which investors are given the choice of selecting an all-public arbitrator panel in disputes with brokers, rather than a panel made up … Continue reading FINRA Proposes to Make Permanent its Public Arbitrator Pilot Program →