From Class Actions to Mass Arbitration: How Dispute Resolution Is Being Redefined

Myriam Gilles | Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Professor Myriam Gilles joined the faculty of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in July 2025 as the Catharine Waugh McCulloch Professor of Law, after serving on the faculty of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law since 1999, where she held the Paul R. Verkuil Research Chair in Public Law. Professor Gilles teaches and writes in the areas of civil procedure, complex litigation and torts, and is currently the fifth most-cited civil procedure scholar in the country. Her work has appeared in the nation’s leading law reviews, and she has testified before Congress multiple times as an expert on forced arbitration and consumer protection. Her scholarship has been supported by the Robert L. Habush Endowment Fund of the American Association for Justice and she has received various honors, including the Pound Civil Justice Institute’s Award for Best Article (2018) and the Berkeley Civil Justice Research Initiative’s Best Publication Prize (2025). Professor Gilles has held visiting appointments at the University of Virginia School of Law and at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, and began her career as a litigation associate at Kirkland & Ellis.

Gerald L. Maatman, Jr. | Duane Morris LLP

Gerald L. Maatman, Jr. is a Chambers-recognized workplace class action defense litigator, an eight-time Law 360 Employment Law MVP, nine-time recipient of BTI Consulting Group’s distinguished Client Service All-Star Award, and a 2021 Legal 500 Hall of Fame inductee. Jerry is a Partner at Duane Morris LLP, where he chairs the firm’s Class Action Defense Group. Among his various cases, Jerry successfully defended the largest EEOC pattern or practice lawsuit ever prosecuted in the history of the Commission, the largest age discrimination collective action ever brought in Illinois, the first sexual harassment class action brought by a State Attorney General in the United States, and the largest wage & hour class actions ever litigated in Florida, Illinois, and New York. A graduate of Washington & Lee University and the Northwestern University School of Law, where he has served as an adjunct professor for 35 years, Jerry is based out of Duane Morris’ Chicago and New York offices. The author of eight books on the law, Jerry is often consulted by major news organizations for his views on significant court rulings and legal issues. He has served as a legal commentator on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), National Public Radio (NPR), MSNBC, CNBC, and USA Talk Radio, and his comments have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Business Insurance, USA Today, Fortune, and Forbes. In 2023, Business Today included Jerry in its rankings of the Top 8 Most Influential Labor & Employment Lawyers in the United States. Further, Chambers selected him as one of the leading class action defense lawyers in its 2006 to 2025 rankings of U.S. lawyers. In its Global rankings, Chambers stated that “Maatman is absolutely phenomenal,” and is “one of the top-class action minds in the country”.

Session I – Mass Arbitration: The Inevitable Response to Class Action Bans | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

• Origins and evolution of mass arbitration
  • How corporate use of arbitration clauses and class action waivers led to the rise of mass arbitration
  • Historical context from AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion and American Express v. Italian Colors
• Strategic use of mass arbitration
  • How plaintiffs’ counsel has leveraged corporate-drafted clauses to generate mass filings
  • Restoring deterrence and accountability through coordinated arbitration strategies
• Recent case developments
  • Wallrich v. Samsung, Pandolfi v. AviaGames, Heckman v. Live Nation, Jones v. Starz
  • How courts are addressing fee refusals, bellwether procedures, and claims of bad faith
• Emerging legal issues and tensions
  • Contract interpretation and unconscionability in mass arbitration provisions
  • Whether bellwether or consolidation procedures undermine the FAA framework
  • The paradox of applying “individualized arbitration” at scale
• Future of corporate dispute resolution
  • The potential resurgence of unconscionability challenges if arbitration is abandoned
  • What a post–mass arbitration era might mean for plaintiffs and corporations alike

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

Session II – Arbitration Agreements and Class Action Waivers: Trends, Risks, and Strategies | 2:10pm – 3:10pm

• Key U.S. Supreme Court rulings
• Outline of the mass arbitration process
• Navigating the rise of mass arbitration and the AAA’s amended rules
• Moving forward: Mandatory arbitration clauses in employment agreements