Recent Articles

Yes, there is a right to effective assistance of counsel in plea bargaining

March 21, 2012 20:12

In 5-4 decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court today decided there is a right to effective assistance of counseling in plea bargaining in the cases of Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye. In Lafler, the defendant rejected the plea offer due to bad advice by his lawyer, who told the defendant that he...

Call for Proposals – Collective Redress in the Cross-Border Context

March 21, 2012 20:05

Stacie  Strong from Missouri is in the Netherlands this semester and is organizaing a conference on collective redresss of cross-border claims.  She sent out a call for papers on the topc recently the ADR list serv, and I’m posting it here in case you missed it.  If you’re interested in...

What do the Mets, Bernie Madoff, and Mario Cuomo have in Common?

March 20, 2012 02:40

If you’ve been paying attention today’s news, you’ve probably heard that the owners of the New York Mets baseball team and Irving Pickard, the trustee for the Madoff vicitms, settled the Trustee’s claim for $1billion in damages for a reported $162million.  This article in...

ABA DR Section Conference – Legal Educators’ Colloquium

March 15, 2012 02:16

As the annual ABA DR Section Conference quickly approaches, I want to encourage everyone to attend the Legal Educators’ Colloquium on Saturday April 21st.  The LEC always promises great programming and this year’s schedule is fantastic.  And I don’t say that simply because 6 of the 8 contributors...

US News ADR Rankings

March 13, 2012 15:35

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the US News rankings are out.  As is well documented, the overall rankings are subject to lots of criticism.  The specialty rankings are purely peer assessment rankings, which makes them more legit, although I’m sure we can quibble about them too. That said,...

NLRB Decision Limiting Class Waivers Appealed

March 13, 2012 12:38

As expected, the NLRB’s decision in D.A. Horton limiting arbitral class waivers in employment agreements has been appealed to the Fifth Circuit. As I suggested in this post, the case pits the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the FAA against the NLRB’s interpretation of...

The Unfairness of Arbitration?

March 08, 2012 04:42

In today’s New York Times, Stanford Law Prof. Amalia Kessler has an interesting op-ed about consumer arbitration.  The interesting thing about this piece is not its arguments against consumer arbitration but its historical take on arbitration that looks back past the FAA.  That said, it...

List of Junior ADR Scholars

March 07, 2012 21:11

Reprinted from the ADR listserv: I would like to put together a list of junior ADR scholars (junior = seven or fewer years of teaching and not yet tenured) for purposes of networking, paper trading, knowledge sharing, commiserating, etc. Please write me back if: You are a junior ADR scholar. You...

Director, Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution – UC Hastings

March 05, 2012 18:54

Last week (or so) Melissa Nelken at UC Hastings announced that Grande Lum has been nominated to a post at the Department of Justice and has resigned as CNDR’s Director.  Excerpts from the job posting are below.  And just in case you weren’t sure, this is a great gig. Under the...

SEC Seeks Public Comment on Two FINRA Dispute Resolution Rule Proposals

March 04, 2012 19:46

The SEC has published two requests for public comment on proposals to amend two separate FINRA Dispute Resolution procedural rules. The SEC’s first request for comment on a FINRA rule change proposal to raise the monetary threshold for Simplified Arbitration cases from $25,000 to $50,000. See...