Negotiating the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund of 2001: Mass Tort Resolution Without Litigation

This paper calls attention to the difficulties in negotiating the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund. The article raises the questions that arose out of the federal law that allowed persons affected by September 11 to voluntarily enter the fund. Was the program a good idea? Was it sound public policy? How do we justify generous treatment of victims in this case but not in others? Should everyone receive a different amount of money relative to their circumstances? If another tragedy occurs, should we do this again

Unconventional Responses to Unique Catastrophes

Mass disasters sometimes require creative remedies. The tort system may not provide the best means of compensation in unusual situations like the Agent Orange chemical exposure litigation, the Virginia Tech shootings,the attacks of September 11th (“9/11”), and the BP oil spill. Executive compensation after the financial meltdown may also require new, innovative approaches. From my work mediating and administering these cases over the last twenty-five years, I have concluded that such alternative compensation systems are—and should be—rare

Symposium on Executive Compensation Keynote Address

I want to thank Richard Nagareda for inviting me to Vanderbilt; he\u27s an old friend. I am very honored to return to Vanderbilt. I taught a course at Vanderbilt, and I loved teaching here. I loved going to the Country Music Hall of Fame and learning more about Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. Really, it was great. I\u27ve already received an invitation from Dean Jim Bradford to come back to the business school and the law school and to participate in an interdisciplinary look at executive compensation. I hope to return. But when I saw that the Vanderbilt Law Review was hosting a symposium on executive compensation-an academic look at executive compensation--I just couldn\u27t resist carving out a few minutes to come spend some time with the experts, learning where they\u27re coming from on this important issue. I\u27m not accustomed to an academic look at executive compensation. I\u27m used to dealing with the practical, substantive, and political problems associated with executive compensation. Today, I\u27d like to make a few preliminary points about executive compensation and the limits of my role as the Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation