ADRworld.com reports that both houses of Congress have passed a bill that, if signed by the President, will add a new section on the use of arbitration agreements to Title II of the Packers and Stockyards Act (7 U.S.C. 198 et seq.). The provisions will permit a producer or grower to opt out of arbitration … Continue reading Farm Bill Allows Farmers to Opt Out of Arbitration
Len Riskin and Nancy Welsh recently posted a version of their article, “Is that All There is? The ‘Problem’ in Court-Oriented Mediation.” I gather from the taglines that it will be published in the George Mason Law Review later this year, and I look forward to seeing the final version. The question Len and Nancy … Continue reading What’s the Problem? (with the problems mediation tries to solve)
We, at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, are both proud and sad to announce today that a major leader in the ADR movement, our dean, Nancy Rogers, will serve as interim attorney general. She is still a member of our faculty, though, and has taken a leave from the university to serve … Continue reading Nancy Rogers, Dean at Moritz College of Law to be Ohio Interim Attorney General
As President Bush visited Israel last week on the occasion of Israel’s 60th Anniversary of its founding, the President and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert met to discuss prospects of working out a peace deal. The lead negotiators for each country–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni–are both women. And, while the … Continue reading Women Negotiating the Middle East Peace
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
The New York Times yesterday had a front page article on how doctors have discovered that saying “I’m sorry” for medical mistakes makes a lot of sense. There is part of me that says “It’s about time!” Many of us in the field have known about this phenomenon for some time based on the research … Continue reading I’m Sorry Actually Works
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
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
Penn Plaza filed its merits brief in the Pyett case on May 5, 2008. For the brief, see http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/unscheduled.html In the brief, Penn Plaza argues that the Federal Arbitration Act does not treat individual arbitration agreements differently than agreements negotiated collectively. As a result, statutory authority does not support the Second Circuit’s decision. According to … Continue reading Penn Plaza Argues for Enforcement of Arbitration Agreement in Merits Brief
David Hoffman published an op-ed yesterday in the Christian Science Monitor about why it might have been a good idea to mediate the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo rather than watching it fall apart. As David writes, “When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer met with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang earlier this month, what kept them from … Continue reading Mediating Between Microsoft and Yahoo?
