Unconscionability Found: A Look at Pre-Dispute Mandatory Arbitration Agreements 10 Years after Doctor\u27s Associates, Inc. v. Casarotto

This Article first explores the Supreme Court\u27s initially reluctant application of the FAA\u27s contract approach to enforceability of arbitration agreements which lasted well into the early 1980s. It then examines federal preemption of state law and the evolution of the arbitration contract as we know it today. Finally, it looks at the application of defenses that exist “at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract” as applied over the past ten years following the Court\u27s decision in Doctor\u27s Associates, Inc. v. Casarotto. This author examines a decade of decisional law and finds a new doctrine of arbitration jurisprudence developing under the FAA that is sensitive to the unique concerns raised by adhesion arbitration agreements. Whether the courts are inappropriately stretching the unconscionability defense is matter of speculation