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Comment by sandofsky | Hacker News Reader

At first I found it weird that the BPPE can't discipline a company until it's registered and operating legally. So for the first few years, it couldn't do anything. The twist is that until the BPPE approves a school to operate, any student debt obligations up to that point are not valid. In theory, anyone in California who enrolled before August 2020 owes them nothing.

The problem is that Lambda School still tries to service those debts. The victims are usually low-income, so they lack the resources to lawyer up. If they do lawyer up, they end up being forced into arbitration due to an arbitration clause in their student agreements.

So in the end, it does feel like the BPPE is a half-measure that doesn't fully tackle predatory companies.

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> If they do lawyer up, they end up being forced into arbitration due to an arbitration clause in their student agreements

You’re literally describing why arbitration works. Someone low income can just file for arbitration with minimal work by a lawyer. Contrast that with the tens of thousands they’d need to pay a litigator.

That true, but this ends up being a game of whack-a-mole, and even a few thousand dollars is too much for a lot of victims. Recently there was an attempt to mount a class action lawsuit, which would have settled things for everyone in one fell swoop, and it was rejected due to the arbitration clause.

> even a few thousand dollars is too much for a lot of victims

Someone angling to go into coding should be able to do the research to draft an arbitration claim on their own. In most cases that isn’t a fair assumption to make, but given the cohort, they should be able to collaborate on a draft.

The gating part isn’t doing the work. It’s knowing you have the option to.

Do you think they should have listed “draft an arbitration claim,” on their enrollment prerequisites?

> Do you think they should have listed “draft an arbitration claim,” on their enrollment prerequisites?

Unless you’re a total numpty, you can learn online how to draft an arb claim. And even if you are a numpty, you should be be to find—in a half-decent cohort—someone who can do this.

The issue is rarely ability. It’s learned helplessness in the face of the legal system. The anxiety, not ability, is the limiting factor.

The company targeted the poor, single mothers, reformed convicts, and other disadvantaged groups. They tend to lack the free time or guidance to navigate these situations. If this work is trivial to you, I am happy to connect you with them to provide your services.

> If this work is trivial to you, I am happy to connect you with them to provide your services

It is. I won't because this isn't something I care deeply about. The question is whether they would have been better off without arbitration, and the answer is no.

In January, a class action lawsuit was rejected by a judge due to the arbitration agreement in the contracts. The whole reason class action suits exist is to save thousands of people from having wage individual fights. If it had gone through, the victims could have done nothing and woken up one day to an email saying, "Your debts are clear."

I honestly can't think of a clearer example of arbitration agreements screwing people over.

The problem is never arbitration. The problem is mandatory pre-dispute arbitration agreements which have, after considerable research, shown to be a negative for consumers. If it were really better you could always select arbitration as a part of the ADR process during during a standard Civil suit.

This is also an area I care deeply about. And have read north of 2000 pages of cases, analysis, and position papers on the topic.

I also have a list of about 90 more documents to read. Slow but steady progress.

And fuck people with anxiety, right?

They split the students to take away their power. They kicked people off Slack, wiping the incriminating message history, and then re-adding students (woopsie), they allowed rampant racism to be posted in the channels. They did so many shady things with arbitration, it was absolutely harmful.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40071539

> I went to a lawyer and was told it wasn't worth suing, because they required arbitration in NYC, which would cost more than I would save.

It sounds like arbitration does not work, according to people who had their lawyer look into it for this exact case. What are your thoughts on it given this new information available to you?

> What are your thoughts on it given this new information available to you?

Curious who that lawyer is. Because for financial arbitration, the win rates are ridiculously skewed in favour of borrowers and retail investors.

Do you have a source for that?

I'd like to read it and add it to this list: https://arbitrationinformation.org/docs/references/

That looks like a biased source, concluding in the first sentence of its introduction that "pre-Dispute Arbitration agreements force people into a form of ‘Rustic Justice’ whose primary purpose to evade meaningful accountability for violations of contract or statutory rights" [1].

That said, I do know bank lobbying group who want to outlaw arbitration for unaccredited investors. Will pass this along.

[1] https://arbitrationinformation.org/docs/problems/

I wrote that page after reading every one of those sources. In full. Including all cited supreme court cases. I actually initially felt that mandatory arbitration was fine and somewhat pro consumer. I changed my mind as a direct result of the research.

To the extent possible id like to strongman arbitration but need to find sources.

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