Sports arbitration symposium planned for May 7 at Law School

Sports arbitration will be the focus of a lively discussion at the Law School at 3 p.m. Friday, May 7. The symposium, titled Torts in Sports: Employment Arbitration and Professional Sports: A Brilliant Pairing or a Bad Idea?, will be held in the Weymouth Kirkland Courtroom in the Law School, 1111 E. 60th St. The event, sponsored by The University of Chicago Law School Roundtable, a legal journal, is free and open to the public.

Allen Sanderson, Senior Lecturer in Economics, will be joined by Sports Illustrated columnist and associate editor Lester Munson; baseball salary arbitrator Roger Abrams; Daniel Evans, director of baseball operations for the Chicago White Sox; and Gordon Hylton, director of Marquette University’s National Sports Law Institute. Each will give a short presentation, but the symposium will mainly be devoted to conversation and debate among them.

The coordinators of the symposium note that they hope to explore the wider ramifications of arbitration as well.

“Arbitration is becoming more widely used in the labor market outside the sports arena,” said Robert Peterson, the editor of the University of Chicago Law School Roundtable.

“It is a strange process, since it is outside the traditional legal system and does not enter the public record. We will explore that process, as well as its possible economic results, and whether it is fair to workers,” he said.