All posts by Nancy Welsh

New California Data on Employment Arbitration

When California legislators decided to require arbitration providers to disclose certain information about their arbitrations, they were probably focused on helping individual people who faced the prospect of participating in an arbitration proceeding.  But the resulting data is also allowing us get an overall look at the status and effects of private arbitration, at least … Continue reading New California Data on Employment Arbitration

The Possible Effect of Tightened Pleading Requirements on ADR

Last summer, in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), the Supreme Court may have signaled the tightening of pleading requirements.  I’ve been wondering whether this also could signal the beginning of a trend that will affect the value—and perhaps even the viability—of ADR.  It’s pretty clear … Continue reading The Possible Effect of Tightened Pleading Requirements on ADR

Enforcement of Mediation Clauses, Careful Drafting and Separability

Recently, in an unpublished per curiam opinion in USA Flea Market v. EVMC Real Estate Consultants, et al., 2007 WL 2615887 (11th Cir., Sept. 12, 2007), a three-member panel of the Eleventh Circuit reversed summary judgment for a party seeking to enforce a contractual obligation to mediate as a condition precedent to litigation.  Like so … Continue reading Enforcement of Mediation Clauses, Careful Drafting and Separability

When Is the Temptation Too Much?

Like Sarah (see her 10/8/07 post), I also noticed that Public Citizen released a report on the credit card industry’s use of mandatory arbitration clauses.  The report uses plenty of inflammatory language:  consumers are being “forced into the shadowy world of binding mandatory arbitration,” arbitration firms “hire arbitrators to rubber-stamp rulings that favor business,” and … Continue reading When Is the Temptation Too Much?

The Relationship Between Justice and Status in Dispute Resolution

For the past several years, I’ve been mulling through the implications of procedural justice in mediation and other forms of dispute resolution.  Procedural justice is, simply enough, the justice of the procedures used to make decisions and resolve disputes.  Researchers “discovered” procedural justice in the 1970s, as the American administrative state experimented with ways to … Continue reading The Relationship Between Justice and Status in Dispute Resolution