All posts by mmoffitt@uoregon.edu

The Hall Street Decision – Professor Rau’s Rant

Alan Scott Rau recently posted his critique of the Supreme Court’s Hall Street Associates v. Mattel decision.  Perhaps, though, to call the article, entitled “Fear of Freedom,” a “critique” is to understate the fervency of Rau’s views.  It’s more like a well-organized, carefully-crafted rant.  Using words like “deeply unsatisfactory,” “appall[ing],” “hesitant and muddy,” and “grotesque,” … Continue reading The Hall Street Decision – Professor Rau’s Rant

ADR: The Federal Government’s Experience

I just read the recently-posted, to-be-published-somewhere empirical study of the use of ADR in the federal government in the late 1990s. Entitled, Dispute Resolution and the Vanishing Trial: Comparing Federal Government Litigation and ADR Outcomes, the study’s authors include Lisa Bingham, Tina Nabatchi, Jeff Senger, and Michael Scott Jackman. Their abstract reads: This study compares … Continue reading ADR: The Federal Government’s Experience

“Peer” Arbitration – Request for Information

John Gradwohl of the University of Nebraska is conducting research about “peer” arbitrations — which he defines as “situations where the parties themselves want to have a system in which their participants make a binding determination of a dispute rather than bring in a third party decider.” He recently posted a request for information on … Continue reading “Peer” Arbitration – Request for Information

Duress as a basis for avoiding an arbitration agreement?

I’m wondering if anyone can point me to a specific example of duress being used successfully as the basis for avoiding an arbitration agreement. I’ve seen plenty of examples of cases in which it has been argued unsuccessfully. And I’ve seen examples of cases in which it was one of a laundry list of grievances, … Continue reading Duress as a basis for avoiding an arbitration agreement?

What Economists Say to Each Other about Settlement

Andrew Daughety and Jennifer Reinganum, two economists from Vanderbilt, recently posted an article on SSRN titled, simply, “Settlement.” I don’t know how it works in the economics literature.  In many areas of the law, insanely short article titles are typically reserved either for those who are unspeakably preeminent or who are the first to a … Continue reading What Economists Say to Each Other about Settlement

Defining Environmental “Conflict Resolution”

If “conflict resolution” happened in a forest, and nobody was around to facilitate it, would it still be “conflict resolution”? In an article in the most recent Conflict Resolution Quarterly, Patricia Orr, Kirk Emerson, and Dale Keyes report on the development of an evaluation framework for conflict resolution practice in environmental and natural resource disputes. … Continue reading Defining Environmental “Conflict Resolution”

Hall Street v. Mattel and “Public Policy”

In one of her blog entries following the Supreme Court’s Hall Street v Mattel decision, Sarah Cole wondered whether the restrictive reading of FAA s10 and s11 left any space for “manifest disregard” and any other judicially-created grounds for arbitral review. Sarah concluded, I think correctly, that manifest disregard appears safe. And as she points … Continue reading Hall Street v. Mattel and “Public Policy”

The Four Ways to Assure Mediator Quality (and why none of them work)

Shameless self-promotion alert! Earlier today, I posted my first draft of an article entitled The Four Ways to Assure Mediator Quality (and why none of them work) I gave a presentation by the same title at Harvard Law School’s Dispute Resolution Forum about six weeks ago, and this draft reflects much of the feedback I … Continue reading The Four Ways to Assure Mediator Quality (and why none of them work)

JAMS Announces a Fellowship Opportunity and a Call for Proposals

Jay Folberg, Executive Director of the JAMS Foundation, recently sent out an announcement about the JAMS-sponsored Weinstein International Fellowship and about the foundation’s call for proposals regarding conflict resolution training for school teachers. Unless I lose another battle with the technology underlying this blog, I will post the announcements below. I believe the information is … Continue reading JAMS Announces a Fellowship Opportunity and a Call for Proposals

Hall Street & “a la carte justice on demand”

In response to Sarah Cole’s initial posting on the Hall Street decision, ohwilleke wrote: The clearest purpose I can see for the ruling is an institutional perogative of the judicial branch which does not want to be compelled to provide a la carte justice on demand.       What’s interesting about the hypothesis ohwilleke offers is that … Continue reading Hall Street & “a la carte justice on demand”