Earlier this month, the NLRB ruled that employers may not require employees to consent to the waiver of class rights as part of an employment arbitration agreement. The NLRB’s rationale was that the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Norris-LaGuardia Act guarantee employees the right to enforce their provisions through collective action. Now, in Sutherland … Continue reading SDNY Invalidates Class Waiver for FLSA Claim
I am pleased to share this invitation from Susan Franck (Wash. & Lee): I wish to draw your attention to the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA) and its First Annual Winter Forum in San Francisco. It is the first event of its kind that is designed to drawn together the synergies of serious scholars of … Continue reading Institute for Transnational Arbitration: First Annual Winter Forum in San Francisco – February 1-2, 2012
Mark Weidemaier (University of North Carolina) has posted Judging Lite: How Arbitrators Use and Create Precedent. The abstract: Common wisdom has it that arbitrators neither follow nor make precedent, with potentially dire consequences. These include the failure to enforce individual rights and the possibility that, over time, widespread use of arbitration will result in the … Continue reading Weidemaier on How Arbitrators Use and Create Precedent
Jean Sternlight’s post on the NLRB’s decision in D.R. Horton, Inc. and Michael Cuda cogently summarizes the NLRB’s rationale for treating class waivers differently in the employment context governed by the NLRA than in other FAA contexts. As she points out, this decision is controversial. Because it runs counter to a steady current of Supreme Court … Continue reading How Will Courts Review the NLRB Employment Class Action Decision?
The annual CPR awards for the best ADR papers, books, and projects were recently announced. Kudos to my friend and ASU colleague Roselle Wissler for winning the Professional Article category with her article Court-Connected Settlement Procedures: Mediation and Judicial Settlement Conferences, 26 Ohio St. J. on D.R. 23 (2011) . Kudos are also due to Mizzou law prof … Continue reading CPR Award Winners Announced !!!
In a Federal Register notice issued last week, the SEC published for public comment a proposal to amend Rule 13201 of the FINRA Code of Arbitration Procedure for Industry Disputes to expressly preclude employees of FINRA members from arbitrating collective actions arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act or the Equal … Continue reading SEC Publishes for Comment Proposal to Exempt Collective Actions from FINRA Arbitration
We have decided to give some more time for interested schools to apply host the next WIP conference. Please consider applying. The AALS Dispute Resolution Section is seeking a host for the 6th Annual Works-in-Progress Conference in the fall of 2012. The WIP Conference has proven to be quite successful, and it has quickly become one of … Continue reading New submission date (2/17) for Proposals to host the 2012 WIP Conference
Just as some states are giving up on their foreclosure mediation programs (see my note on the demise of Florida’s program here), the Department of Justice is urging greater investment in foreclosure mediation. Through the report of its Access to Justice Initiative, DOJ makes a number of recommendations, including increased research and evaluation of state … Continue reading Federal Support for Foreclosure Mediation
Earlier today, I learned that Raymond Shonholtz died. He was a founder and president of the San Francisco Community Boards. It would be hard to overstate the role these community boards played in the evolution of mediation in the United States, not just the small claims versions thereof, but also many of the facilitative and … Continue reading Raymond Shonholtz: Community Mediation Visionary
Paul beat me to the punch, but I could not agree more with him that the Court’s decision in Compucredit v. Greenwood is unsurprising. The true mystery of the case is that the Court took it in the first place. Until Congress decides to make it clear that a particular statutory claim cannot be arbitrated, … Continue reading Unsurprising is Exactly How I Would Describe Compucredit v. Greenwood
