Revolution in Law through Arbitration, The Eighty-Fourth Cleveland-Marshall Fund Visiting Scholar Lecture

My subject is arbitration. I explore how its re-emergence during the last forty years has revolutionized the thinking about, and the practice of, law. The development of a "strong federal policy favoring arbitration" cast aside traditional acceptations about law and adjudication. The rule of law-the human civilization associated with law and the legal process-has been profoundly, perhaps irretrievably, altered by the rise of arbitration.

The landmark cases in labor and employment arbitration-Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Company (the "old time religion") and Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corporation (the "new age"thinking)-attest to the enormous distance that separates past and present concepts of legal due process and fundamental rights. Administrative and managerial considerations have never weighed more heavily upon basic legal values. Their sacramental character has, in fact, been irreversibly tarnished. Process factors have curtailed the reverence for rights.

Practicability has emerged as the dominant force in the definition and implementation of law. Instrumental beliefs with historical foundations have virtually disappeared as the legal system countenances exclusively the necessity of operational efficacy. American law and citizenship have undergone a drastic transformation as a result of the judicial re-evaluation of arbitration.