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How Forced Arbitration Became America's Secret Justice System
by Brendan Ballou
The definitive exposé of forced arbitration, the secret justice system that protects abusers, employers, and powerful corporations.
America has a hidden justice system. There, decisions are made in secret, and "judges" are paid for by the companies and abusers who are being sued. Victims usually lose. But when they do, they cannot appeal, and they cannot turn to real courts for help.
They are trapped in this system, and quite likely, so are you. You joined it when you accepted the Terms and Conditions on a website, opened a new credit card, or started a new job. When you did, you agreed to be trapped in this secret justice system called "forced arbitration." Through its secrecy and corruption, forced arbitration helps companies cheat their workers, helps banks deceive their customers, and helps predators act with impunity. If companies and the very powerful often seem beyond the reach of the law, it's because they are, and forced arbitration is the reason.
Yet despite the fact that forced arbitration profoundly shapes our lives, almost nothing has been written about it. Brendan Ballou's When Companies Run the Courts changes that. It shows how forced arbitration came to be, how it makes your life worse, and how we might escape it.
"Hard-hitting ... Ballou unpacks labyrinthine legal reasoning in clear, down-to-earth prose that spotlights the human cost of 'a cruel and lawless system.' It's a forceful indictment of one of America's most unjust and problematic legal frameworks." ―Publishers Weekly
"Shocking ... A well-reasoned denunciation of justice unserved, and a cogent demand for overhauling a patently corrupt system." —Kirkus Reviews
"Ballou exposes a made-for-TV story of wealthy corporations collaborating with Republican-controlled courts to create a coercive, barely legal process: forced arbitration. The near-conspiracy-level story of corporate greed is as readable and propulsive as it is maddening. Unlike much of what ails our legal system, however, there are ready fixes that Ballou offers readers. For those looking to understand an overlooked aspect of our two-tier justice system and do something about it, When Companies Run the Courts is a must-read." ―Leah Litman, New York Times bestselling author of Lawless
"In Frank Capra's America, everyone can have their day in court. In the real world, however, we are all subject to another justice system, tilted toward large corporations in ways that are maddeningly opaque and abusive. Ballou explains how we got here and what's to be done about it in this illuminating, lucid, and righteously furious account." ―Jesse Eisinger, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Chickenshit Club
This information about When Companies Run the Courts was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Brendan Ballou is a former federal prosecutor and served as special counsel for private equity in the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. He is the author of Plunder: Private Equity's Plan to Pillage America, which was named one of Fortune magazine's best books of the year. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Politico, Slate, and The Atlantic.
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