Can't speak to other states, because I don't practice there, but California law is largely governed in this area by a 2000 case in which one of its courts of ap

Can't speak to other states, because I don't practice there, but California law is largely governed in this area by a 2000 case in which one of its courts of appeal held that employment contracts in this setting were "contracts of adhesion" and therefore that an arbitration clause in such a contract might be held to be unconscionable in certain circumstances. The analysis can get complex but the bottom line is that binding arbitration clauses are not automatically deemed unconscionable and unenforceable - they are only unenforceable if they are unfair. In the 2000 case, the court found the clause to be unfair because it required the employee to submit all claims for wrongful termination to binding arbitration while enabling the employer to take its claims against the employee (e.g., a claim for theft of trade secrets) to court. (see a reprint of the decision here: http://www.lawmemo.com/docs/ca/armendariz.htm http://www.lawmemo.com/docs/ca/armendariz.htm) (contains a long and very technical discussion of the entire range of issues affecting whether a binding arbitration clause is or is not enforceable against an employee in California). In practice, then, employers have adjusted their arbitration clauses to make them fair on the surface so as to make them enforceable, no matter how unfairly they might work in practice. For an updated discussion, here for example is a write-up of a 2009 case in which such a clause was enforced by a California appeals court against an employee: http://www.laboremploymentlawblog.com/arbitration-agreements-california-court-of-appeal-finds-arbitration-clause-enforceable.html http://www.laboremploymentlawblog.com/arbitration-agreements....