Fueled by a series of Supreme Court decisions handed down over the past 40 years, forced arbitration clauses have been adopted by tens of thousands of companies that provide a seemingly limitless array of goods and services.
This has not exactly been a positive development for consumers. Shennan Kavanagh, the director of litigation at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) explains why:
“Forced arbitration robs consumers of their basic Seventh Amendment right to access the courts. These fine print traps allow predatory lenders, fraudsters, unscrupulous banks, and other repeat offenders to escape accountability by depriving consumers of choice and forcing disputes into closed-door, biased proceedings where consumers rarely win.”
By the way, “rarely” is an understatement. According to NCLC attorney Lauren Saunders, consumers who take on companies alone lose 97% of the time.
To make matters worse, a recent study released by NCLC revealed that the vast majority of Americans have no idea what a forced arbitration clause is or does or that they unwittingly agreed to clauses buried in the fine print of contracts they clicked “yes” to online or physically signed.
That lack of knowledge can have an extremely high price tag, a fact that doesn’t hit consumers until they become embroiled in a dispute with a company and discover they have no path to justice or reasonable opportunity to recover what they are owed.
The inequities in the system cry out for reform. That is why DannLaw has joined the NCLC and other consumer advocates in calling on Congress and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to end the forced arbitration reign of terror. To date, both have refused to act.
In reaction to their inexcusable inaction, DannLaw has formed a Forced Arbitration Practice Group led by attorneys Alisa Adams and Kurt Jones who have extensive experience pursuing and winning forced arbitration claims. Alissa, Kurt, and the Group’s talented paralegals are ready, willing, and more than able to take on banks, financial services firms, and any company that is using forced arbitration to prey upon, rip off, or exploit their customers.
If you or someone you know is a victim of forced arbitration, click here to arrange a free consultation with our Forced Arbitration team.
We are also available to co-counsel with attorneys who now represent clients with forced arbitration claims. To learn more about collaborating with us or to refer a client to us, please click here.
