Author Archives: abfifer

Free At Last: Expungement

July 12, 2022 – 11:13 am

Free at last! Jesus frees us from the guilt and shame of our sin, but only the state can free us of a criminal conviction. The process is called expungement, and I had the privilege yesterday of seeing a friend’s conviction expunged. Like so many of us, she “did something stupid” long ago, and she […]

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Online Dispute Resolution: Is It Working?

April 28, 2022 – 5:32 pm

Michigan was one of the few states that was ahead of the curve when the lockdown began, because it had already implemented an online dispute resolution (“ODR”) process and trained mediators to mediate these cases in a chatroom-like mode — asynchronous, no cameras required. A good example of a court ODR system is the program […]

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Apology Atrophy?

April 9, 2022 – 2:23 pm

A recent column in the New York Times by Jessica Bennett (“Hes’s Sorry, She’s Sorry, Everybody is Sorry. Does it Matter?“) notes that public apologies just don’t seem to be making us feel better these days. Where ten years ago the public apology seemed like sufficient punishment to restore the offender to society, now it […]

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Celebration Church Lawsuit

March 19, 2022 – 12:06 pm

It’s a little harder to celebrate at Celebration Church these days. The church, based in Jacksonville, Florida, is embroiled in litigation. The church’s trustees ousted its founding pastor, Stovall Weems, in January, and he has filed a lawsuit against the church, seeking reinstatement and demanding an investigation of “any and all wrongdoing.” The church countered […]

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Proposed Michigan Rule Could Impair Christian Arbitration Clause

February 23, 2022 – 4:58 pm

In my post of February 11, 2022, I wrote about legislative initiatives that could prevent arbitration clauses in contracts between Christians from being legally enforceable. Today I examine a judicial effort that would have a similar effect. Most world religions exhort their adherents not to sue one another, but rather to resolve their disputes within […]

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