consumer arbitration

Alternatives to Arbitration: Government ADR

The serious problems with binding mandatory arbitration (BMA) as a consumer dispute mechanism for financial services raises the question of "how can we do this better?" Any solution to financial...

Public Citizen Responds to Their Critics on Arbitration

In September 2007, Public Citizen released a report entitled The Arbitration Trap: How Credit Card Companies Ensnare Consumers. Using data from California arbitrations, the Public Citizen report...

Senate Hearings: Bartholet on NAF

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee again held hearings on how recent Supreme Court decisions affect the everyday lives of Americans. Professor Elizabeth Bartholet of Harvard Law School testified...

NAF, Just NAF

"NAF" sounds like maybe something you should say when you're frustrated. "NAF!, I stubbed my toe." In some circles, NAF may already be turning into an expletive. NAF stands for the National...

San Francisco City Attorney Sues NAF

My semi-favorite debt collector, er, I mean arbitration service, the National Arbitration Forum (NAF), has been sued by the San Francisco city attorney. The San Francisco Chronicle reports the story...

What a Law Professor Does on a Saturday Afternoon

It's Saturday afternoon, and as a law professor I'm spending it in my usual way--reading and rereading the various form contracts to which our household is subject. I was all involved with an...

Bankrupt Consumer Arbitration

A couple of years ago, I got all exorcised about MBNA v. Hill, 436 F.3d 104 (2d Cir. 2006). The case involved a consumer bankruptcy where MBNA had offset $159 from the consumer's account despite...

Deathstar Arbitration

Arbitration may seem like the Andy of Mayberry form of dispute resolution--folksy, cheap and fair. The data suggest, however, that it is Darth Vader's Death Star--the Empire always wins. A new report...

Arbitration First-Hand

In our running discussion of arbitration, the data are useful, but sometimes it helps to get the flavor of how an arbitrator makes a decision. An attorney forwarded this email to me, which I post...

Disinfecting Consumer Arbitration

Elizabeth Warren already posted on the Consumer Arbitration Fairness Act (H.R. 1030 in the U.S. House and S. 1782 in the U.S. Senate). In addition to the Christian Science Monitor story about the...