Arbitration and Rule Production

Arbitration has been criticized as displacing cases from the public courts and thereby reducing the production of court precedent. Moreover, while arbitral awards might substitute for court precedent, the standard view is that arbitrators have little incentive to issue awards that produce legal rules because such awards mostly benefit parties to future disputes. This Article critically examines both the hypotheses, filling in gaps in existing legal literature and also offering new theoretical and empirical insights for a comprehensive account of arbitration and rule production.

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Hard Battles over Soft Law

ALI Restatements of the Law have traditionally exerted significant influence over court decisions and the development of the common law. During the past two decades, however, the ALI has seen an upsurge in interest group activity designed to shape or even thwart aspects of the Institute’s work.

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