Introducing Overruled, a great online resource for timely legal commentary -- including the menace of mandatory arbitration

by Ken

As you may have noticed, our friend Jon Dodson has cut back his writing for us on legal matters, in order to devote fuller attention to his bulging legal caseload. One of these days we'll get around to nudging him to see if we can't shake an occasional piece out. Meanwhile there's an excellent new source of current legal comment, now that our distinguished colleague Ian, a frequent commenter on legal affairs on HuffPost and elsewherem has taken the plunge and started his own blog, Overruled.

After eight years in which we progressives relied on our legal brethren to keep track of the constitutional and legal matters the Bush regime was making mincemeat of, legal issues have become if anything higher-profile, as we survey the wreckage and figure out what has to be done to restore the rule of law (and the Constitution, of course), and as we fail to do so. I've come to trust Ian's timely and carefully considered takes on matters of immediate legal import, and I'm sure the blog will give him a chance to focus on longer-term issues as well.

One subject that Ian has jumped on about which I confess I knew very little is the campaign for the proposed Arbitration Fairness Act, designed to deal with a whole area of legal coercion, mandatory arbitration, which hasn't gotten much discussion outside the legal community. As he wrote Friday:

I’ve written a lot lately about binding mandatory arbitration, the biased, privatized justice system which many companies force their customers and employees to participate in. If you are tricked or trapped into signing a mandatory arbitration clause, and many companies will refuse to do business with you unless you do, you lose the right to hold that company accountable in court if it breaks the law—and instead must bring your case to a secret tribunal that overwhelmingly favors corporations. Presently, the corporate lobby is fighting very hard to block a bill which will stop abusive arbitration.

Note: In the event that Prof. Jonathan Turley hasn't covered the legal issue you're interested in with either Keith or Rachel, and isn't taking your calls, Ian welcomes e-questions and tips.

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