On April 7, 2017, the Rutgers Institute for Professional Education and Rutgers University Law Review will sponsor an all-day symposium entitled: “Resolving the Arbitration Dispute in Today’s Legal Landscape.” One of the four panels will be devoted to the CFPB’s arbitration rulemaking.

All four speakers on the CFPB panel are law professors.  Of those law professors, to my knowledge, only Professor Jeff Sovern of St. John’s University School of Law and Professor Myriam Gilles of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law have been involved in the CFPB rulemaking.  Professors Sovern and Gilles both support the CFPB’s proposed rule which would bar the use of class action waivers in arbitration provisions in consumer financial services contracts.  Based on the articles they have written, it appears at least one of the other panelists is a proponent of class actions who would not support the CFPB’s proposed rule.

Most significantly, there is no panelist who drafts or defends arbitration provisions for the consumer financial services industry.  There is also no one from the CFPB or the staff of a Congressional committee that will consider the important issue of whether Congress will use the Congressional Review Act to override any CFPB final arbitration rule.