A Utility Player at Trial: The Humble Inference
by Andrew Flake
This week, we hold up for praise...the inference. Unassuming and hardworking, inferences reward more careful attention than we give them. The careful reader will recall, for example, that last week's Eleventh Circuit case turned on an inference --...
11th Circuit Uses Trademark Case to Instruct on Summary Judgment Practice
by Andrew Flake
In a trademark case decided just this month, FCOA, LLC v. Foremost Title & Escrow Services LLC, the Eleventh Circuit considered when a case should be decided without a trial, looking at the special case in which...
Chat GPT and Litigation Technology, Reprised
by Andrew Flake
When I considered ChatGPT in last week's post, musing about how disruptive this next generation of AI might be for the world of litigation and dispute resolution, I may have understated the...
2023: The Arrival of Hands-On AI
by Andrew Flake
You may have read that, at the close of the year, artificial intelligence (AI) hit the mainstream. Open AI released a tool, ChatGPT, with some remarkable capabilities. Among other things, it can generate poetry, essays,...
Utilizing the Special Master
by Andrew Flake
We've read recently, in the highly-charged political context of a dispute between the national records administration and the former president, of the role a special master has played. Because how the court-appointed experts fit into litigation is...
“Flora-Bama,” “Floribama,” and a Comparative Look at ADR
by Andrew Flake
You read certain appellate opinions and just know they were fun to write, and so it is with a trademark dispute, simmering over the past five years, involving a famous bar and an MTV reality television series...
Early Dispute Resolution (EDR): A Recipe for Success in Commercial Mediation
by Andrew Flake
When it comes to our favorite dishes, while we may not ourselves be chefs, most of us can at least name the key ingredients. A great sirloin is cut just so, perhaps seasoned with salt and pepper...
An Idea Whose Time Has Come? Considering the Role of Settlement Counsel
by Andrew Flake
Invited to an extended family reunion, I visited one of our state parks a few weekends ago. It was a cool and beautiful morning, and for a moment, standing under a bright blue fall sky, taking in the...
Under New York Convention, Separate Service of Summons not Required to Confirm Award
by Andrew Flake
Certain cases can be useful because of their technical guidance; they address nuts-and-bolts issues. In the international arbitration realm, one of those issues is the process of taking an arbitration award and getting it confirmed, or converted...
The Availability of an “Exceeding Powers” Challenge to the International Arbitration Award: 11th Circuit to Revisit Longstanding Precedent
by Andrew Flake
One of the questions that continues to come up in international arbitrations, where they touch U.S. courts, is how Sections 1 and 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act work together. Generally, Section 1 applies to domestic arbitrations -- ones between...