White Plains, NY— On February 12, 2004, Pace Law School will host the eighth annual James D. Hopkins Lecture presented by Professor Barbara Black. Professor Black’s lecture "Is Securities Arbitration Fair to Investors?" will be held at Pace Law School in White Plains, with a reception immediately following. The lecture will be held in the lecture hall at the New York State Judicial Institute at Pace Law School at 4:00 p.m. Admission to the lecture is free of charge and open to the public.

After nearly two decades of debating the issue, participants in the securities arbitration process have yet to reach consensus on what constitutes a "fair forum" for the resolution of disputes between investors and brokers. This ongoing debate over two opposing paradigms of arbitration will be the subject of Professor Barbara Black’s address when she delivers the Hopkins Lecture to an audience of academic and legal professionals gathered in the Moot Court Room at Pace Law School.

Professor Black, the James D. Hopkins Professor of Law at Pace, will discuss securities arbitration in general and give particular attention to the factors that make it so difficult for investors and brokers to find common ground.

"Regulators, investors, and the securities industry as a whole have struggled over this for twenty years, yet have been unable thus far to reach agreement," says Professor Black. "What is not often explicitly acknowledged is the existence of two competing models of arbitration."

Arbitration is traditionally viewed as an informal process in which strict application of procedure and legal precedent defer to compromise and equity. The recent alternate model compares arbitration to a judicial process where procedures approximating those found in court and the application of defined standards of liability are overriding components of fairness. Professor Black will describe the ongoing efforts to reform the securities arbitration process and attempt to evaluate the fairness of the current system from the perspective of investors.

Professor Barbara Black teaches business law at Pace Law School. She is the founder and co-director of the Securities Arbitration Clinic at Pace. The clinic, believed to be the first of its kind, represents small investors in their claims against brokers. She is also co-director of the Pace Investor Rights Project. Prior to joining the Law School faculty, Professor Black was associated with two law firms: first with Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler in New York, then with Rogers and Wells in Washington D.C. Her article, "Fraud on the Market," has been extensively cited, including citations by both the majority and dissenting opinions in the Supreme Court’s opinion on fraud on the market.

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Founded in 1976, Pace Law School is a New York Law School with a suburban campus in White Plains, N.Y., 20 miles north of New York City. Part of Pace University, the school offers the J.D. program for full-time and part-time day and evening students. Its postgraduate program includes the LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees in Environmental Law and an LL.M. in Comparative Legal Studies. Pace has one of the nation's top-rated Environmental Law programs and its Clinical Education program also is nationally ranked, offering clinics in domestic violence prosecution, environmental law, securities arbitration, criminal justice and disability rights. www.law.pace.edu 

Pace is a comprehensive, independent university with campuses in New York City, Pleasantville and White Plains, NY and a Hudson Valley Center at Stewart International Airport in New Windsor, NY. More than 14,000 students are enrolled in undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs in the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Lubin School of Business, School of Computer Science and Information Systems, School of Education, Lienhard School of Nursing and Pace Law School. www.pace.edu