In a remarkably short time period, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a proposed rule change filed by FINRA to provide investors with the option of selecting an all public arbitrator panel in arbitrations filed against their brokers or brokerage firms in FINRA’s Dispute Resolution forum. Thus, customer claimants have the option of eliminating an … Continue reading SEC Approves All Public Panel Option for FINRA Customer Arbitrations →

The New York Times printed today an article by its controversial columnist, Gretchen Morgenson, entitled “Arbitration, Litigation, Aggravation.” The article reports on a FINRA arbitration brought by a beneficiary trust of Helen Cohen, an elderly widow who died in 2008, alleging that her broker at the State Employees Credit Union (SECU) improperly recommended that she … Continue reading Is Gretchen Morgenson Now A Fan of Securities Arbitration? →

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 →