MassArbitration — Intelligence on mass arbitration, aggregate litigation, and the economics of dispute resolution.

Provider RulesAug 18, 2026

The Rulebook Rewrote Itself: Where AAA and JAMS Now Stand on Mass Filings

Two providers, two philosophies. The AAA applies its mass regime at its own discretion and flattened the initiation fee; JAMS will only run its procedures if you wrote them into the contract. The gap between those choices decides who has leverage on day one.

Rules Desk·Aug 18, 2026·4 min read

The short version

The AAA's mass rules reach 25 or more similar demands in consumer and employment matters and apply at the AAA's discretion — not by contractual election.
JAMS applies a single 75-claimant trigger regardless of dispute type, but only where the parties expressly adopted its Mass Arbitration Procedures.
The January 2024 AAA fee schedule replaced per-case initiation fees with a flat $11,250 and eliminated case management fees entirely.

Many individual claims converging through narrowing channels into a single consolidated proceeding

Every demand is formally individual. What aggregates them is counsel and cost structure — not any rule of procedure.

On the wire

See all →

By the numbers

35,651: Claimants in a single AAA filing that ended in termination for non-payment
$11,250: Flat AAA mass initiation fee since January 2024, replacing per-case charges
~$6M: Reported exposure for 10,000 demands post-2024, down from over $15M
106: Consumer-facing companies whose redrafted clauses were studied empirically

Latest analysis

See all →

Courts & DoctrineAug 11, 2026

Heckman Set the Ceiling on Protocol Design — and the Supreme Court Left It There

The Ninth Circuit struck down a bespoke mass arbitration regime root and branch, including its delegation clause. Certiorari was denied in October 2025. Every protocol drafted since has been written in that decision's shadow.

Courts Desk · 3 min

Courts & DoctrineJul 28, 2026

Rios v. HRB Digital: The Court Did the Arithmetic, and the Protocol Failed

Twenty-five coordinated claims per round. Aggressive resolution targets. A tolling provision the drafter could contest. The Northern District of California found the combination unconscionable — and gave every clause reviewer a checklist.

Courts Desk · 3 min

Courts & DoctrineJul 14, 2026

Wallrich and the Non-Payment Strategy: What the Seventh Circuit Actually Decided

Thirty-five thousand claimants, a $4.1 million invoice, and a respondent that declined to pay. The Seventh Circuit held a district court could not order it to — a ruling whose reach depends entirely on the words a clause uses to incorporate provider rules.

Courts Desk · 3 min

Courts & DoctrineJun 23, 2026

Achey: The Decision That Made Courts Count the Queue

Twenty-five claimants trigger the protocol; ten claims move at a time; nothing sets an outer limit and nothing tolls the clock. A New Jersey appellate court declined to sever, and struck the agreement in its entirety.

Courts Desk · 3 min

The docket

Full case tracker →

N.D. Cal.2025

Rios v. HRB Digital LLC

Whether a bellwether-and-batching protocol paired with an asymmetrical tolling provision is enforceable.

Developing

9th Cir.2024

Heckman v. Live Nation Entertainment, Inc.

Whether a bespoke mass arbitration protocol — including its delegation clause — is unconscionable, and whether state unconscionability law is preempted.

Cert. denied

7th Cir.2024

Wallrich v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc.

Whether a district court may order a respondent to pay an arbitration provider's administrative filing fees.

Controlling

N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div.2023

Achey v. Cellco Partnership

Whether a batching provision that releases claims in fixed tranches is unconscionable under state law.

Persuasive

Provider rules at a glance

Full comparison →

AAA

Process Arbitrator

Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules

Trigger: 25+ similar demands (consumer and employment)
Applies: Applied at the AAA's discretion — no separate contractual adoption required
Front-end fee: $11,250

JAMS

Process Administrator

Mass Arbitration Procedures and Guidelines

Trigger: 75+ claimants, same or coordinated counsel
Applies: Requires express contractual adoption / party consent
Front-end fee: $7,500

Reported mass arbitration cost scenarios
Scenario	Regime	Up-front
1,000 consumer demands	AAA, pre-2024 Consumer Rules	$1.775M – $2.275M
10,000 consumer demands	AAA, pre-2024 Consumer Rules	$15M+
10,000 consumer demands	AAA, post-January 2024	~$6M
500 consumer demands	AAA, per-case schedule	$162,500
35,651 demands (Wallrich)	AAA, as invoiced	$4,125,000

Reference

117 terms, from batching to the learned intermediary doctrine

Mass arbitration practice sits inside a wider aggregate litigation vocabulary. The glossary covers both — provider machinery and clause anatomy alongside the Rule 23 and MDL terms that surround them.

Open the glossary →

Mass Arbitration Arbitration Procedure Doctrine & Statutes Class Actions Mass Tort & MDL Fees & Funding

Desks

Provider Rules1 piece Courts & Doctrine4 pieces Clause Drafting1 piece Fees & Economics3 pieces Scholarship2 pieces International1 piece Policy & Reform1 piece