Name: Bridget McCormack
Title: President and CEO
Company: American Arbitration Association-International Centre for Dispute Resolution
Website: www.aaaicdrfoundation.org
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: New York, NY
Description: To support the prevention and resolution of conflicts by expanding access to alternative dispute resolution.
AI, Innovation, and the Future of Arbitration: How the AAA-ICDR® is Transforming Dispute Resolution
Bridget M. McCormack is the president and CEO of the American Arbitration Association-International Centre for Dispute Resolution (AAA-ICDR), a global leader in alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Previously, she served as chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court (2019–2022), spearheading judicial reforms, including Michigan’s first online dispute resolution platform and an eviction diversion program. A dedicated legal educator, she has taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and played a key role in modernizing legal education, particularly as to AI’s impact on the profession.
McCormack co-founded the Michigan Innocence Clinic, which has led to 41 exonerations and has received numerous accolades for her contributions to legal reform and transparency. A graduate of Trinity College and New York University School of Law, Bridget talks about the AAA-ICDR and its future plans.
Excerpts from an interview:
Inception of the AAA-ICDR
The AAA-ICDR is a global leader in alternative dispute resolution, providing arbitration and mediation services to individuals, businesses, and governments worldwide. With nearly a century of expertise, the AAA-ICDR is committed to delivering efficient, fair, and impartial dispute resolution solutions. The organization leverages cutting-edge technology, including AI-driven tools, to enhance accessibility and streamline arbitration processes. As a mission-driven nonprofit, the AAA-ICDR prioritizes user-focused innovation over profit, ensuring its services remain transparent, effective, and widely available. By collaborating with legal professionals, policymakers, and technology experts, the AAA-ICDR continues to set global standards in arbitration, helping resolve disputes swiftly and equitably while reinforcing trust in the rule of law.
Founded in 1926, the organization addresses the growing need for a structured and efficient alternative to traditional litigation. “As legal disputes became more complex and court dockets more congested, arbitration and mediation emerged as faster, more cost-effective, and confidential ways to resolve conflicts. The organization was established to standardize arbitration processes so that they would be fair, impartial, and widely accessible to businesses, individuals, and institutions,” says Bridget.
The ICDR, the American Arbitration Association’s (AAA’s) global division, was later created to expand these services internationally, addressing the needs of cross-border disputes in a rapidly globalizing economy. Today, the AAA-ICDR remains a trusted leader in ADR, leveraging technology and expertise to provide efficient, innovative, and just solutions for resolving conflicts worldwide.
Integration of AI into dispute resolution process
The AAA-ICDR is integrating AI into its dispute resolution processes, transforming arbitration by enhancing efficiency and accessibility. The legal tech market is evolving rapidly, but for true transformation, courts and ADR providers must modernize their systems to meet growing demand. Generative AI is reshaping dispute resolution by streamlining processes such as neutral selection, record review, timeline generation, and even automated award drafting. As the backbone of conflict resolution, AI significantly reduces time and costs, increasing access to arbitration. “Dispute resolution isn’t just a good fit for AI—it’s almost as if AI were designed for dispute resolution,” Bridget says. Building on its almost one century of ADR expertise, the AAA-ICDR is leading this shift through innovations like AAAi Panelist Search, automated scheduling orders, and ClauseBuilder AI (Beta). These advancements mark the beginning of a broader effort to expand and modernize dispute resolution.
AAAiLab™: Pioneering AI Innovation in Alternative Dispute Resolution
The AAAiLab is a groundbreaking AI knowledge center and thought leadership hub designed to drive innovation, collaboration, and transparency in ADR. Serving as a key platform for responsible AI integration, the lab fosters collaboration between experts, institutions, and stakeholders while promoting ethical governance in AI-driven dispute resolution. By openly sharing findings from expert AI workgroups and implementing governance frameworks, the initiative enhances trust and idea exchange within the ADR community and the public.
Beyond thought leadership, the AAAiLab is actively developing transformative projects that demonstrate AI’s potential in legal tech. For example, it has partnered with Suffolk Law School to create an online dispute resolution (ODR) service for family law and is collaborating with the National Center for State Courts to scale an AI-powered tool initially developed as a pro bono project for a Pennsylvania court’s consumer debt docket. Through these initiatives, the AAAiLab ensures that technology enhances rather than replaces the human-centered approach critical to effective dispute resolution. By prioritizing inclusivity, responsible innovation, and accessibility, the AAAiLab is shaping the future of ADR, making it more efficient, scalable, and accessible to those who need it most.
Promoting Fairness and Transparency: AAA-ICDR’s AI Governance in Arbitration
The AAA-ICDR upholds fairness, transparency, and accessibility in AI-driven arbitration through a robust governance framework anchored in six core principles: competence, confidentiality, advocacy, impartiality, independence, and process improvement. These principles, formally outlined on the AAAiLab website in “Principles Supporting the Use of AI in Alternative Dispute Resolution,” guide the continuous refinement of AI tools to support arbitrators and parties while safeguarding process integrity and data confidentiality. Rigorous testing ensures that AI enhances—not undermines—trust in the system. By maintaining transparency, the AAA-ICDR helps stakeholders understand AI’s role in arbitration, balancing innovation with integrity to create a dispute resolution environment that remains accessible, just, and fair for all.
Driving Innovation: AAA-ICDR’s Rapid Transformation in Legal Tech
The AAA-ICDR has rapidly delivered process improvements and AI-driven innovations to enhance arbitration and dispute resolution. Key AI releases include AI scheduling orders, ClauseBuilder AI (Beta), AAAi Chat Book Case Prep and Presentation, and AAAi Panelist Search, alongside the launch of AAAiLab to showcase these advancements. Beyond developing legal tech, the AAA-ICDR strategically buys and licenses solutions to maximize user value. A partnership with Clearbrief enables instant AI-powered factual record streamlining while the acquisition of ODR.com expands ODR services. “But the most significant advancement is the change management we have achieved to turn a 99-year-old nonprofit into a nimble and creative tech leader,” notes Bridget.
Driving Change: The Key to Successful AI Transformation
Change management is particularly challenging in legal and legacy businesses, requiring vision, curiosity, humility, adaptability, and collaboration. A successful transformation demands a structured innovation culture, dedicated funding, and a commitment to top-down and bottom-up change, recognizing that every employee is part of the R&D lab. “You can’t assign an AI transformation to your engineering team and hope for the best—this technology has no user guide, and some of your best ideas will come from unexpected people and teams,” observes Bridget. Creating a culture where innovation is contagious is essential to navigating and sustaining meaningful transformation.
Challenges Galore
Bridget emphasized the transformative potential of AI in dispute resolution, stating, “The opportunity is substantial and hard to overstate; AI can dramatically expand access to justice by making dispute resolution more affordable, efficient, and navigable for individuals, businesses, and organizations.” She acknowledged that while AI can automate routine tasks and enhance accessibility, the key challenge is building and sustaining user trust. “We must bring the profession along by transparently demonstrating that we incorporate AI responsibly and ethically into dispute resolution and that AI tools are designed to enhance fairness and decrease bias,” says Bridget. She highlighted that fostering trust through transparency, governance, and ongoing education is essential to ensuring AI serves the interests of justice.
AAA-ICDR: Leading the Future of AI-Driven Dispute Resolution
The AAA-ICDR is at the forefront of shaping AI-driven dispute resolution, leveraging its expertise, talent, and mission-driven culture to innovate and set industry standards. “We get to build the best new dispute resolution services for the many who need them because we know the impact ADR can have. As a nonprofit, we get to center users, not shareholders, as we navigate this disruption,” adds Bridget. Through collaboration with stakeholders, technologists, and policymakers, the organization is committed to developing cutting-edge solutions that expand access to justice while preserving trust in ADR as a fair and effective process in the digital age.
Pioneering AI Innovations for Arbitration and Access to Justice
The AAA-ICDR is integrating AI into both products and operations to make dispute resolution more user-friendly, efficient, and accessible. It will be releasing a steady stream of AI-driven innovations in the coming months, including an AI Case Filing Assistant Chatbot launching this spring aimed at simplifying the filing process. The ODR.com team is also developing new solutions tailored for high-volume court dockets.
Breaking Barriers with AI: The AAA-ICDR’s Vision for the Future of Dispute Resolution
AI is not only lowering the barrier to entry for those filing cases but also making dispute resolution more accessible and efficient for all parties involved. This transformation is particularly significant for cases that often go unresolved due to parties’ limited resources and lack of information. By leveraging AI, the AAA-ICDR is allowing for more disputes—both complex and minor—to be resolved fairly, efficiently, and collaboratively.
The organization envisions a future where conflict resolution is accessible to all, regardless of financial or logistical barriers. “In a legal tech market focused largely on buyers and sellers of legal services, we are focused on building the operating systems of justice to grow confidence in the rule of law and harmony in our communities,” according to Bridget. With this mission in mind, the AAA-ICDR is developing AI-driven solutions that strengthen trust in the justice system, making dispute resolution more inclusive, transparent, and equitable.
