Page 4 - Arbitration Clauses News Today

Far. for example, the legal engineers, the lawyers, were able to have much greater influence than they ever had, and their idea of trail blazing legal strategy was to create corporate takeovers and mergers. or to create arbitration clauses that keep people out of the courts when they have a consumer dispute or a job discrimination dispute. so everything was tilted toward what i called the protected in this country at the expense of the vast majority in this country who were the unprotected. and ...

Themselves. thats the country we have today. >> was it done with malice? >> no, not at all. this was -- these were smart people striving achieving and they were doing what makes america great, its just that the usual guardrails didnt work because they were so smart and so driven that they were able to go too far. for example, the legal engineers, the lawyers were able to have, you know, much greater influence than they ever had. their idea of trailblazing legal strategy was to create a, you know...

Corporate takeover fights and they created the legal precedent for the arbitration clauses that are keeping the middle-class out of the courts when they have a job discrimination claim or a consumer rights claim so the knowledge economy typically ended up with liberal lawyers coming out of liberal law schools going to liberal law firms and doing the legal engineering that caused all the discontent that we have of the middle-class today. the paul weiss law firm, for example, in new york, a notabl...

Schools went off to law schools like i did, like yale and harvard, and their knowledge economy was legal engineering and financial engineering. it was stock buy backs and corporate take over fights. and they created the legal precedent for the arbitration clauses that are keeping the middle class out of the courts when they have a job discrimination claim. >> right. >> or, you know, a consumer rights claim. so, the knowledge economy typically ended up with liberal lawyers who were coming out of ...

Arbitration clauses can get at that issue is by having some open proceeding, being able to reveal in public without the nondisclosure agreements that are forced on them some kind of public accountability. thats what we want from uber. >> have they been responsive? >> so far not, but im hoping that they will not only eliminate the arbitration clause, but also allow these people who have been physically assaulted, raped, abused, to have their day in court. >> senator richard blumenthal, always gre...

More hearings. the judiciary committee ought to be having hearings. ive been frustrated by the slow pace of the investigation. i think it has to be accelerated. >> i want to talk to you about whats going on with uber because i know you are very concerned about this. a cnn exclusive this week found that there have been 103 uber drivers who have been accused of sexual assault in the past four years. you are -- the reason the public doesnt know about this is because of these arbitration clauses. so...

Explain and a lot of things they dont want to come out in public because there are some questionable activities. scrutiny in their case is not a good thing. thats why obviously they imported all of these arbitration clauses into their nondisclosure agreements and their settlement agreements. so they could keep all of these dealings in private arbitration, in private alternative dispute resolution. so that they could resolve them without anybody finding out. >> and danny, this week daniels attorn...

>> yes, playboy, but not pornographic material. i think these women obviously, that is ms. mcdougal and ms. daniels would like to be able to share what their story is. they have set forth the reasons in their lawsuit. and, you know, there are many, many women who just refused to be silenced anymore. they want to stand up. they want to tell what their truth is. and they feel that the arbitration clauses that they were -- that they entered, that were in their arbitration agreements, their nondiscl...

>> there is. i agree its signaling an intimidation tactic. i dont know how effective it is because it doesnt act as a legal claim. its not a cause of action by itself. its not even a demand. its just telling the court, hey, in case youre wondering, here is why this claim is worth so much. courts in deciding whether they have jurisdiction in remove cases will look to four corners of the notice of removal and say is this at more than $75,000. they seem to have added it up. thats good enough for us...

Theres pretty substantial law favoring in both federal and state courts, arbitration clauses. federal and state courts will send those cases right back down to arbitration. but in a case like this, trumps loss may not be in court, it may be when the information reaches the light of day. you cannot unring that bell. >> jeff, we were saying a few days ago when the white house spokesperson talked about arbitration that brought the story into the white house. nothing brings the story into the white ...