Reining in the Manifest Disregard of the Law Standard: The Key to Restoring Order to the Law of Vacatur

The thesis of this article is that if the manifest disregard of the law standard is either rejected as doctrinally unsound or somehow harmonized with Section 10(a) of the FAA in a manner that precludes judicial intrusion into the merits of commercial arbitration awards, the legitimacy of all of the remaining nonstatutory grounds for vacatur will be eviscerated. If those nonstatutory standards were eliminated, the law of vacatur would be restored to the simple, straightforward standards articulated by Congress in Section 10(a) of the FA

Holistic Strategy for Coming to Grips with the Creeping Legalism of Labor Arbitration, A

The commentary that follows is a call to advocates to take back responsibility for settling the disputes that arise during the life of the collective bargaining agreement by becoming more adept negotiators, able and willing to find and engage the truth and unafraid to lead and make difficult decisions. Only then will the legal machinations and contortions that increasingly plague labor arbitration be rendered unnecessary in most circumstances. I assert that the creeping legalism of labor arbitration is a symptom of the too-frequent failure of the contractual grievance procedure to resolve difficult disputes. The conundrum that phenomenon presents can be ameliorated only if the parties mutually commit to attacking that underlying disease forthrightly and earnestly

Federal Preemption and Vacatur: The Bookend Issues under the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act

As one of the two Academic Advisors to the Drafting Committee appointed by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws ( NCCUSL ) to revise the Uniform Arbitration Act, I was assigned primary responsibility for the two most important issues pertinent to the Drafting Committee\u27s framing of the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act ( RUAA ). The first-the issue of federal preemption-set the baseline for the scope and character of the RUAA by defining for the Drafting Committee the areas of the substantive law of arbitration in which the states are free to regulate, the Federal Arbitration Act ( FAA ) notwithstanding. The second-the issue of vacatur-is by far the most significant dimension of substantive arbitration law open to state regulation. This article describes the manner in which the RUAA Drafting Committee engaged and resolved the issues of federal preemption and vacatur

Labor Contract and External Law: Revisiting the Arbitrator\u27s Scope of Authority, The

This article examines the impact of Misco and the attendant body of case law emerging from the U.S. circuit courts of appeals on the labor arbitration process. The ultimate goal of this study is to ascertain whether the public policy exception warrants a rethinking of traditional views of the relationship between collective bargaining agreements and external law, and the manner in which labor arbitrators should juxtapose the two in resolving contractual disputes. The Authors assert that it does

Labor Contract and External Law: Revisiting the Arbitrator\u27s Scope of Authority, The

This article examines the impact of Misco and the attendant body of case law emerging from the U.S. circuit courts of appeals on the labor arbitration process. The ultimate goal of this study is to ascertain whether the public policy exception warrants a rethinking of traditional views of the relationship between collective bargaining agreements and external law, and the manner in which labor arbitrators should juxtapose the two in resolving contractual disputes. The Authors assert that it does

Employment Arbitration at the Crossroads: An Assessment and Call for Action

Arbitration agreements must be on equal footing with all types of contracts. This stark reality demands that the various stakeholders in the arbitration community converge in the interest of designing and institutionalizing arbitration mechanics and processes that, as a start, exceed the minimum requirements to avoid arguments of substantive unconscionability and, more broadly, provide the fair, just, and accountable alternative dispute resolution system the FAA and the U.S. Supreme Court have indicated it can be. This paper seeks to guide this next stage of the debate by first reviewing the doctrinal developments over the past thirty years that led to a settled state of arbitration law. We then exhort the various stakeholders to collectively take up the challenge of this next stage. In particular, we hope to prompt that cooperation by laying out the essential elements of a fair and just employment arbitration mechanism