Saltman Center Professors Contribute Key Scholarly Works

Saltman Center scholars continue to address a broad range of important issues pertaining to conflict resolution at the local, national, and international level. Drawing from theory, social science, and empirical studies, their work aims to improve our systems of justice in such fields as intellectual property, criminal justice, employment, consumer issues, personal injury, and much more.

Here is a sampling the latest scholarly works from the Saltman Center’s faculty:

Arbitration’s Dark Shadow (2018, 18 Nevada Law Journal 427). Examining uses of arbitration in the domestic securities context, Boyd Associate Professor of Law Benjamin Edwards contends that by allowing domestic securities brokers to require investors to resolve claims against their brokers in arbitration rather than litigation, we have permitted these disputes to be buried in a lawless shadow.

Arbitration, What Is It Good For? (2018, 18 Nevada Law Journal 457). This article by William S. Boyd Professor of Law Thomas Main takes a big-picture look at the role arbitration should play within overlapping systems of dispute resolution. In particular, Main’s essay emphasizes that arbitration occurs not merely in the shadow of formal adjudication, but also under the auspices of a formal system that must be held accountable for arbitration’s shortcomings.

Mediator Burnout (forthcoming, Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution). Authored by UNLV Law Associate Professor Lydia Nussbaum, this article explores the relationship between safeguarding the quality of ADR processes and regulating the role of the third-party neutral. Nussbaum, who is the Saltman Center’s Associate Director as well as Director of Boyd’s Mediation Clinic, argues that one way to assure the delivery of quality mediation processes is not by regulating the behavior of the third-party mediator but by better regulating the environments in which these mediators do their work.

Mandatory Arbitration Stymies Progress Towards Justice in Employment Law: Where To, #Me Too? (forthcoming, Harvard Civil Rights—Civil Liberties Law Review). In this article, Saltman Center Director Jean Sternlight argues that employers' imposition of mandatory arbitration on their employees prevents law from developing progressively, something that could potentially aid the most vulnerable members of society. Sternlight, who is the Michael and Sonja Saltman Professor of Law at Boyd, points to the #MeToo movement as an example of this phenomenon: Not only is sexual-harassment law lagging behind public sentiment, but it may never catch up because mandatory arbitration provisions keep so many sexual-harassment claims out of litigation.

Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights at Trade Shows: A Review and Recommendations (forthcoming, Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution). Trade shows are ideal venues for exchanging information about the newest intellectual property (IP). Unfortunately, the larger the trade show, the greater the potential for conflict to surface over IP rights. This article from Marketa Trimble, the Samuel S. Lionel Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Boyd, reviews from a comparative perspective the options that IP right owners have for immediate relief at trade shows; considers limitations that current law imposes on temporary restraining orders in the United States; and explores alternative dispute resolution mechanisms that some trade-show organizers around the world have created to deal with IP rights disputes.