Karl Bayer's Disputing Blog

Law Review Article: “Disappearing Juries and Jury Verdicts”

By Victoria VanBuren - July 13, 2009

To follow up on our post of last week. We are pleased to recommend another excellent law review article, “Disappearing Juries and Jury Verdicts,” 39 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 289, written by the Honorable Sam Sparks, U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Texas and DLA Piper attorney George B. Butts. The article traces the history of jury trials, presents statistics reflecting the decline in the number of cases tried, and discusses F

Law Journal Article: “Civil Jury Trials R.I.P.? Can it Actually Happen in America?” and the Federal Arbitration Act

By Victoria VanBuren - July 4, 2009

During this Fourth of July holiday weekend, our good friend Don Philbin stumbled across “Civil Jury Trials R.I.P.? Can it Actually Happen in America?” 40 St. Mary’s L.J. 795 written by the Honorable W. Royal Furgeson, Jr. In the article, Judge Furgeson discusses the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007, which is analogous to the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 (previously blogged here) currently considered in the U.S. Congress. If

ABA – CLE on July 14 | Deal or No Deal: Improving the Odds of Successful Mediation

By Victoria VanBuren - June 30, 2009

Need CLE Credits? Mark your calendars! The American Bar Association Section of Litigation will hold a live teleconference and webcast on July 14, 2009 titled “Deal or No Deal: Improving the Odds of Successful Mediation.” Reinsurance and Insurance expert Katherine Billingham from KB ReSolutions, Inc. and Randall Kiser from DecisionSet will present at the event. Randall’s article Lets Not Make a Deal: An Empirical Study of Decisio

Kluwer Arbitration: The Case for Publication of Arbitral Awards

By Victoria VanBuren - June 19, 2009

The Kluwer Arbitration Blog had a recent post discussing the the issue of whether international arbitral awards should be published. As this parallels the arguments we find in U.S. arbitration, we thought you might be interested in reading it. The authors, Alexis Mourre and Alexandre Vagenheim, elaborate on the following questions: 1. Is Arbitral Jurisprudence anything more than a myth? 2. How does persuasiveness of past awards operate? 3. Is Pre

National Arbitration Forum’s Response to NPR Arbitration Story

By Victoria VanBuren - June 17, 2009

In response to the National Public Radio (NPR) story blogged here, Forthright, the administrator for the National Arbitration Forum sent this letter to NPR (link to pdf here). In the letter, Forthright’s CEO addresses the issues of: consumer outcomes in arbitration, claims by former arbitrator Elizabeth Bartholet, and the benefits of arbitration. Thanks to Forthright for sending us the letter and allowing us to share it with our readers.

Arbitration Myths: Commentary by Federal Judge

By Victoria VanBuren - June 11, 2009

In response to our post about an article titled “Arbitration Myths” published by the National Arbitration Forum, U.S. District Judge W. Royal Furgeson, Jr. sent us the following [unedited] commentary via e-mail: Dear Friends: To say that arbitration awards are “approved” by a court before becoming enforceable gives the impression that a court will actually examine the merits of the arbitrator’s award. Under the Feder

Employment and Consumer Arbitration: NPR Article

By Victoria VanBuren - June 10, 2009

Yesterday, NPR had an interesting article about the controversial issue of mandatory arbitration of claims between businesses and individuals (employees and consumers). First, the article discusses the unfortunate story of a young woman who was allegedly raped by several men while working in Iraq for Halliburton. At issue in her case ( Jones v. Halliburton ) is a motion to compel arbitration of her tort claims filed by Halliburton. The case remai

Arbitration Myths

By Victoria VanBuren - June 9, 2009

[update: see Commentary by Federal Judge about this article here] Ever wonder what are the most common myths about the arbitration process? Below is a discussion of five misconceptions about arbitration from an article by the National Arbitration Forum Blog: Arbitration costs more than court – In most consumer cases filing fees in arbitration are significantly less expensive than the filing fees required in many trial courts. Arbitration fi

Sonia Sotomayor Meets Posner: Standards of Review for Arbitration Awards After Hall Street

By Victoria VanBuren - June 2, 2009

Over the past year, the circuit courts have differed over whether the “manifest disregard of the law” doctrine survives the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Hall Street. Hall Street Assoc. v. Mattel, Inc., 128 S. Ct. 1396 (2008). In a recent article, Philip J. Loree Jr. analyzes the Second Circuit’s interpretation of Hall Street in Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds Int’l Corp., 548 F.3d 85 (2d Cir. 2008). Interestingly, the

ICANN: Recent Developments in Internet Governance

By Victoria VanBuren - May 28, 2009

As a future computer scientist, it is hard not to write about the most recent issue of Landslide, published by the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law. The magazine contains an excellent article by Mark V. B. Partridge and Scott T. Lonardo. The authors discuss ICANN‘s recent developments in the Internet domain name system: Domain Name Tasting. In order to decrease the practice of domain name tasting, ICANN has adopted a new policy to l