Do you ask for contract or purchase terms prior to completing your everyday purchases? Do you first read the pizza box before paying the pizza delivery guy or gal? Typical consumers do not ask for or read their contracts prepurchase, and companies have become accustomed to burying purchase terms...

This Article provides a short summary of the distinctions between privacy and confidentiality in domestic arbitration pursuant to non-public parties’ private agreements, and seeks to spark discussion of transparency reforms that respond to effects of these distinctions in that context. It...

Consumer advocates and policymakers call for abolition of predispute arbitration clauses in consumer contracts, while proponents of arbitration claim such abolition would increase companies’ dispute resolution costs, leading to higher prices and interest rates. Policymakers on both sides of...

Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) has been promoted for quickly and conveniently resolving claims using online “drive-thru” processes instead of more costly and time-consuming face-to-face meetings and hearings. Most commentators have nonetheless focused mainly on non-binding or automated...

As arbitration’s prominence grows in a wide variety of contracts, it is imperative to ensure fairness with respect to its use and procedures. However, the proposed Arbitration Fairness Act (AFA) may be too rash in its blanket ban on pre-dispute arbitration agreements in employment, consumer,...

Attorneys face mixed messages regarding consumer arbitration: Mixed professional responsibility rules; mixed legal enforcement; mixed messages from commentators and policymakers; mixed evidence regarding efficiency, cost-savings and fairness. It is therefore doubtful that attorneys would face...

The Federal Arbitration Act mandates strict and uniform enforcement of standardized pre-dispute arbitration provisions. This may not be proper, however, in light of the importance of context with respect to these provisions. This Article therefore seeks to remind courts of the importance of...

This article proposes legislative procedural reforms accounting for the realities of consumer arbitration that have threatened and denied consumers' access to remedies for companies' violations of public, or statutory, warranty remedies under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (MMWA). Furthermore,...

Talking in the abstract about the challenges and expectations of modern consumers can only go so far. The new kinds of redress and consumer protection programs that undergird THE NEW HANDSHAKE (ODR mechanism proposed by Amy J. Schmitz and Colin Rule in their book by that name) have already been...