Federal Preemption and Vacatur: The Bookend Issues under the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act

As one of the two Academic Advisors to the Drafting Committee appointed by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws ( NCCUSL ) to revise the Uniform Arbitration Act, I was assigned primary responsibility for the two most important issues pertinent to the Drafting Committee\u27s framing of the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act ( RUAA ). The first-the issue of federal preemption-set the baseline for the scope and character of the RUAA by defining for the Drafting Committee the areas of the substantive law of arbitration in which the states are free to regulate, the Federal Arbitration Act ( FAA ) notwithstanding. The second-the issue of vacatur-is by far the most significant dimension of substantive arbitration law open to state regulation. This article describes the manner in which the RUAA Drafting Committee engaged and resolved the issues of federal preemption and vacatur