Ep 235: How the American Arbitration Association embraced Generative AI, with CEO Bridget McCormack and CIO Diana Didia

LawNext

One year ago, Bridget Mary McCormack, the former chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, took over the helm of the American Arbitration Association, the largest private provider of alternative dispute resolution services in the world, as its president and chief executive officer. While on the court, McCormack was a leading voice for innovating the justice system to expand access to justice, and since joining the AAA, she is credited with having “supercharged” its innovation efforts – particularly with regard to its adoption of generative AI.

Also critical to those innovation efforts has been Diana Didia, senior vice president and chief information and innovation officer at the AAA, who had helped ignite the association’s innovation efforts well before McCormack arrived and whose work not only set the stage for continued innovation but has been critical in helping the organization drive forward into embracing generative AI.

Our guests on today’s LawNext, McCormack and Didia – along with many others on their team – have been working full bore over the past year to drive further innovation at the AAA and to integrate AI into its own work and into the broader field of dispute resolution. They recently launched the AAAi Lab, a website supporting AAA users, arbitrators, in-house counsel and law firms with policy guidance, educational webinars and tools for embracing generative AI, and also ClauseBuilder, a generative AI tool for writing clear and effective ADR clauses.

When we spoke, they were preparing to present this week on the AAA’s innovation efforts and its adoption of AI as part of a panel at Legalweek in New York.

Thank You To Our Sponsors

This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.

• Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.

• Legalweek NY 2024, Described as the “one legal event that hits all the marks for information, education, and networking”

If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.