Effective Vindication in Name Only: How Arbitration Rights Now Depend on Geography

By Braxton Johnson Defendants invoke arbitration to control costs, timelines, and exposure, but courts must still confront a threshold question: will arbitration permit plaintiffs to meaningfully vindicate federal statutory rights? In Italian Colors, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) sought to answer this question by recognizing the “effective vindication doctrine,” which bars enforcement…

The Power of the FAA after Lamps Plus

This past spring 2019, the Supreme Court brought a new interpretation to the field of U.S. arbitration. A challenge for workers but a gift for employers, Lamps Plus v. Varela has more loosely applied the waiver of class action arbitration in the Federal Arbitration Act. The FAA was enacted in 1925 to relieve pressure on…