ASU will be hosting the 3rd annual Aspiring Law Professors Conference on September 15th. The Conference is designed for Visiting Assistant Professors, Fellows and others who plan to go on the academic teaching market, but anyone considering a career as a law professor will find it valuable. To see a short flier for the conference go here, … Continue reading Aspring Law Professors Conference
Earlier this week, FINRA DR announced that it has launched a pilot program designed to allow parties to customize the administration of cases involving damages of $10 million or more. Parties who choose to opt into the pilot can “bypass” some of FINRA’s arbitration rules, and design their own administrative process to enhance party flexibility … Continue reading FINRA Dispute Resoution Launches Pilot Program to Administer Large Cases
Judge Denise Cote in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last week held that a class action waiver in a pre-dispute arbitration clause in eBooks purchasers’ customer agreements rendered the arbitration agreement unenforeceable because the costs of pursuing claims individually would not permit individuals to vindicate their statutory rights. See In re Electronic Books … Continue reading SDNY Court Voids Arbitration Clause with Class Action Waiver
The guidelines for the 2012 CPR Awards are out and can be accessed here. A blurb about the awards program from the CPR website follows. The CPR Institute’s Awards Programs honors outstanding scholarship and practical achievement in the field of alternative dispute resolution. Award criteria focuses on process, techniques, systems, commitment, and scholarship which address the resolution, … Continue reading CPR ADR Awards – 2012 Guidelines Announced
Last week at the Arizona Bar meeting my colleague Timothy Burr presented a progress report for the Foreclosure Mediation Unit of ASU’s Lodestar Dispute Resolution Program. The program was well attended and has generated some buzz in the legal community. In some sense this was the FMU’s coming out party as we’ve been keeping a … Continue reading Arizona Foreclosure Mediation – Part 1
I am happy to post the following announcement from the Institute for Transnational Arbitration for their next meeting in January, 2013. The Institute For Transnational Arbitration 2nd Annual Winter Forum Biltmore Hotel Miami January 24-25, 2013 CALL FOR PAPERS The Executive Committee and Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA) are proud … Continue reading ITA Winter Forum–Call for Papers
I just heard Dahlia Lithwick over the weekend on NPR describing her new theory of the world–Muppet Theory–and I am convinced that this could usefully explain much of the legal system as well. Lithwick, a writer for Slate Magazine and Newsweek, has divided the world into Berts and Ernies. As she outlines in her article … Continue reading Muppet Theory
Not surprisingly, as reported here by the Legal Skills Prof Blog yesterday, Microsoft announced that it was revising all of its consumer contracts to add class action waivers. Consumers will be able to pursue low dollar value disputes individually in either small claims court or arbitration, but will not be able to aggregate them with … Continue reading Microsoft adding class action waiver to its consumer contracts
I just finished reading a book that everyone who cares about legal education in the United States should read: Failing Law Schools by Brian Z. Tamanaha. The book does an excellent job of describing the economic realities of law schools for prospective law students and society as a whole. Tamanaha gives a compelling and highly … Continue reading A “Must Read”
While mediation is common in the legal system, the public is not very familiar with mediation and what happens in the process. This lack of familiarity is not helped by mediation on the big or little screens (see Wedding Crashers or Fairly Legal) or by the confidentiality protections that keep people from discussing their mediations … Continue reading Publicizing Mediation Successes
