Panacea or Corporate Tool?: The Sequel

It seems so long ago. Rereading my article, now more than twenty years later, is like rewatching the beginning of an old long war movie. I was so young, optimistic, and naive. When I wrote the article I saw myself as something of a prophet Isaiah, crying in the wilderness. My goal was to alert the world to the dangers I saw in the then-new phenomenon of mandatory contractual arbitration, and to fight back against that phenomenon. I thought, or at least hoped, that if I alerted the world to the dangers I saw, surely someone would step in to protect consumers and employees. Instead, while the world has certainly been alerted, so far corporate use of mandatory arbitration remains largely unchecked and indeed has expanded beyond what I ever imagined in my worst nightmares. One recent study found that more than 50 percent of nonunion employees have been deprived of their right to sue their employer in court, and we all know that mandatory arbitration is rampant in the consumer setting. In addition, companies have used mandatory arbitration to insulate themselves from class actions in many contexts....