A mandatory arbitration clause in Bracewell & Giuliani’s client engagement letter meets the limited criteria in Pennsylvania for such clauses to be enforceable, a federal judge has ruled, declining to step into what he said was the sole purview of the state Supreme Court to expressly outline what steps a law firm must take to make such clauses fair for the client.
Plaintiffs Craig and Mary Jo Sanford argued in Sanford v. Bracewell & Giuliani that mandatory arbitration clauses were unconscionable in client engagement letters and gave law firms an unfair advantage. They urged the court not to enforce the clause in their engagement letter with Bracewell & Giuliani and apply moving forward the more stringent notice requirements for using a mandatory arbitration clause that were laid out in a 2012 Louisiana Supreme Court case, Hodges v. Reasonover.
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