Prof. Franck on Invisible Gorillas

Professor Susan D. Franck, Associate Professor of Law, recently wrote The Invisible Gorillas in International Arbitration on the Kluwer Arbitration Blog.

The post discusses the classic experiment explored by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in their new text, The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us. The experiment video can be found here. In the experiment, two teams, one wearing white shirts and the other wearing black shirts, pass two basketballs among themselves. The observer is asked to count how many passes the white team makes. In the middle of the video, a female student dressed as a gorilla walks through the scene, pounds her chest, and continues on. According to researchers, about 50% of observers don’t see the gorilla.

Prof. Franck relates this phenomenon to international arbitration. For lawyers who are consulting with clients, obvious (yet critical) permutations in cases may be missed. She warns that attorneys should try to see as much as possible, so as to not inadvertently miss the proverbial “gorilla in our midst.”

Congratulations to Professor Franck.

Prof. Scales on SIGTARP

Professor Adam F. Scales, Associate Professor of Law, recently published his article, SIGTARP: A Problem in Name Only, 68 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 457 (2011), in the Washington & Lee Law Review.

The short article is a review and discussion of Aaron Sims’s article, SIGTARP and the Executive-Legislative Clash: Confronting a Bowsher Issue with an Eye Toward Preserving the Separation of Powers During Future Crisis Legislation, 68 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 375 (2011). Prof. Scales addresses Sims’s constitutional concern that Congress, acting through the SIGTARP, will obtrude into a function explicitly assigned to the President.

Congratulations again to Aaron Sims and to Professor Scales.