New American Arbitration Association CEO: Errick Takes Over as McCormack Exits for Clio

Who runs the AAA now: Errick in, McCormack out as of October 2

The American Arbitration Association CEO is now Steve Errick, serving on an interim basis, after Bridget M. McCormack's resignation as president and chief executive took effect on Friday, October 2, 2026. McCormack is leaving the largest arbitration provider in the United States for Clio, where she will build court technology for judges, and the AAA-ICDR board has opened a formal search for a permanent successor while saying the institution's strategy will not change.

For anyone with claims pending before the American Arbitration Association (AAA), or an arbitration clause that points to it, the practical answer is that nothing about the rules, the fee schedules or the panel of neutrals moved on Friday. What did change is who will decide the next round of rule amendments, the next fee schedule and the next product launch, and that is a live question in a market where provider policy has repeatedly set the terms of the fight over mass arbitration. The transition was announced in early September; this report covers the handover itself, what the departing chief built, what her interim successor inherits, and what the change does and does not mean for drafters, respondents and claimants' counsel.

Who is the new CEO of the American Arbitration Association?

Steve Errick is the interim president and CEO of the American Arbitration Association, effective October 2, 2026. The AAA-ICDR board of directors appointed him from inside the organization: he was the AAA's chief development officer and, according to the association's announcement, a former member of its board.

Errick is a legal-information executive rather than a lawyer-administrator. He joined the AAA in 2023 as senior vice president and chief development officer, a role that covered strategic initiatives, product development, marketing and, in the AAA's own description at the time, projects on how evolving technology and artificial intelligence would affect alternative dispute resolution, including alliances, joint ventures and acquisitions. Before the AAA he was chief operating officer of Fastcase from 2017, then chief global content officer at vLex after the Fastcase-vLex merger, and from 2010 to 2016 he ran the Legal Research Information Division at LexisNexis as vice president and managing director.

Two features of the appointment matter for practitioners. First, the board picked the executive closest to the AAA's technology agenda, which signals that the AI products launched since 2023 are not being paused. Second, "interim" is doing real work in the title: the board has said only that it will conduct a formal search, without a timetable and without saying whether Errick is a candidate. Until a permanent chief is named, large policy moves at the provider are less likely than continuity.

Who is J. Michael Kirkland, and what did the board say?

J. Michael Kirkland chairs the AAA-ICDR board of directors. His statement framed the transition as continuity rather than reset: the board, he said, is "grateful" to McCormack and "clear-eyed" that "the strategy she helped build is the institution's strategy, and it continues without interruption under our interim President and CEO, Steve Errick." The release added that the AAA's commitments to the parties it serves, to its panel of neutrals and to its technology roadmap "are unchanged."

Why did Bridget McCormack step down, and where is she going?

McCormack stepped down to take a leadership role focused on bringing artificial intelligence into courts and judicial chambers, work she says she began as Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. Her own explanation, released with the AAA announcement, was that an opportunity had arisen at "the intersection of work I have cared about throughout my career: access to justice, institutional innovation, and the potential of technology — especially AI." Building something "focused specifically on judges," she said, was an opportunity she "could not turn down."

The AAA's announcement did not name the new employer. Clio did, on September 16, 2026: McCormack is joining the legal software company as general manager, judiciary, starting in October 2026. She will work alongside Pablo Arredondo, the Casetext co-founder who joined Clio as senior vice president, judiciary. Clio has assembled the pieces of a court-facing business through acquisitions, including the legal research company vLex and Learned Hand, an AI tool built for judges and chambers. Clio founder and CEO Jack Newton called the judiciary "one of the largest opportunities to strengthen how the legal system works" and said McCormack "understands this market at a level very few people do."

The move has a mild irony worth noting for anyone watching the private-justice market: the executive who spent more than three and a half years making private arbitration faster and cheaper is now going to work on the public courts that compete with it.

What did McCormack accomplish as AAA CEO?

McCormack joined the AAA in February 2023, after a decade on the Michigan Supreme Court, where she was Chief Justice from 2019 to 2022. According to the association, during her tenure the AAA grew annual cases filed to more than 580,000, expanded its mediation practice and its international footprint, and launched a series of technology partnerships, tools and products, the most prominent being the AAA AI Arbitrator.

For readers on the mass arbitration side, the McCormack era is best measured by rule changes rather than case counts. The table below lists the provider-level developments most relevant to mass filings and AI, with dates.

Date	Development	Why it mattered
February 2023	McCormack becomes AAA president and CEO	Former state chief justice takes over the largest US provider
2023	Steve Errick joins as SVP and chief development officer	Technology and AI agenda gets a dedicated executive
January 15, 2024	Amended Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules and new mass fee schedules take effect	25-case trigger, counsel affirmation, Process Arbitrator, flat initiation fees ($3,125 claimant side, $8,125 business side)
May 1, 2025	Revised Consumer and Employment/Workplace Rules take effect	Virtual hearings by default; multiple claims by one party under one contract can be administered as one case
November 3, 2025	AAA-ICDR AI Arbitrator opens for documents-only construction cases	First provider-run AI decision tool, opt-in by both parties, human arbitrator signs the award
September 23, 2026	AAA and Jus Mundi publish State of AI in U.S. Arbitration 2026	557 respondents; average trust in AI of 2.18 out of 5
September 30, 2026	California SB 574 signed (operative January 1, 2027)	Bars arbitrators from delegating any part of decisionmaking to generative AI
October 2, 2026	McCormack departs; Errick becomes interim president and CEO	Board opens formal search for a permanent chief

The January 2024 package is the centerpiece for this audience. It applies the AAA mass rules when 25 or more similar demands are filed with consistent or coordinated representation, requires counsel to sign an Affirmation Requirement attesting that each claimant's information is true and correct to the best of counsel's knowledge, and installs a Process Arbitrator with authority over conditions precedent, payment of costs, hearing locations, and which demands belong in the mass. It also replaced per-case initiation charges with flat fees, set out in separate schedules for consumer, employment and business-to-business matters. The structural point, explained in our AAA and JAMS rulebook comparison, is that the AAA applies its mass regime at its own discretion rather than only where the contract opts in.

Will the AAA's mass arbitration rules change after McCormack leaves?

No, not as a result of the leadership change itself. The Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules, the mass fee schedules and the 2025 consumer and employment rules remain in force exactly as published; a change of chief executive does not amend them, and any revision would have to be adopted and published as a rule amendment with an effective date, as the January 2024 and May 2025 changes were.

The more useful question is whether the next round of amendments becomes more or less likely. Three considerations point toward a pause on major rule-writing in the near term. The board has described the current strategy as continuing "without interruption," which is language of continuity, not revision. An interim chief executive with a formal search under way has limited mandate for contested changes. And the existing mass rules have now been tested in court and in practice for more than two and a half years, so respondents and claimants' firms have built their playbooks around them.

Pressure for change has not gone away, however. Respondents continue to press for earlier claimant vetting and tighter evidentiary preconditions, and claimants' counsel continue to challenge Fee Non-Payment by respondents and provider-level Administrative Closure of cases. Whoever becomes the permanent American Arbitration Association CEO will inherit those competing demands, along with competition from JAMS's opt-in procedures and newer providers such as New Era ADR, which some companies now name for mass filings.

Do the AAA's fees change?

No. The flat initiation fees introduced in January 2024 ($3,125 for the claimant side and $8,125 for the business side, together $11,250 per mass filing), and the remaining charges in each schedule, are unaffected by the executive change. Fee schedules are revised by publication, and none has been announced.

What happens to the AAA AI Arbitrator now?

The AAA AI Arbitrator continues to operate. Board chair Kirkland specifically said the AAA's technology roadmap is unchanged, and the interim CEO is the executive who has led the association's technology and AI development work since 2023.

The product itself is narrow. Since November 3, 2025, parties to low-value, documents-only construction cases administered by the AAA-ICDR may jointly elect to have the AI Arbitrator prepare the decision. It was trained on more than 1,500 construction awards and calibrated with input from human arbitrators. The process keeps a human in the loop: the system drafts the analysis and award, and a human arbitrator reviews it, edits as needed and signs the final award. Both parties must consent.

That design now faces its first state statute. California SB 574, signed by Governor Newsom on September 30, 2026 and operative January 1, 2027, adds Code of Civil Procedure section 1282.1, which bars an arbitrator from delegating any part of the decisionmaking process to a generative AI tool and requires disclosure before relying on AI-generated material outside the record. Our SB 574 coverage sets out the text. Whether a human-signed award drafted by an AI system amounts to delegating "any part" of the decision is exactly the question the new AAA leadership will have to answer for California-seated cases, and it is the kind of judgment call that tends to fall to a permanent chief rather than an interim one.

The provider's own data also show a cautious audience. The AAA and Jus Mundi survey released on September 23 put average trust in AI among 557 US arbitration professionals at 2.18 out of 5, with sharp differences between daily users and non-users; our survey analysis covers the detail.

Does the AAA leadership change affect pending arbitrations?

No. Pending AAA cases continue under the rules in effect when they were filed, before the arbitrators already appointed, on the schedules those arbitrators set. The chief executive does not decide individual cases, appoint merits arbitrators case by case, or rule on arbitrability, and the AAA has announced no change in its case administration, its panel or its staff leadership below the CEO level.

Parties also cannot treat the transition as a basis for relief. A change in the provider's management is not a ground for Vacatur of an Arbitral Award under section 10 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), it does not, on its own, create the kind of lapse in the appointment process that triggers a court's power to appoint a substitute arbitrator under section 5, and it does not alter the provider rules that a contract incorporates by reference. Clauses that name the AAA continue to work exactly as written.

What it means for drafters, respondents and claimants' counsel

For drafters. No clause needs amending because of the transition. The more durable lesson is about Incorporation of Provider Rules: a clause that adopts the AAA rules "in effect at the time the demand is filed" will pick up whatever the next leadership adopts. Drafters who want stability against future amendments can consider freezing a rules version, at the cost of losing later improvements, or building their own Bellwether Provision (Arbitration) and Batching terms into the contract rather than relying on the provider's discretion.

For respondents facing mass filings. The 25-case trigger, Process Arbitrator and flat initiation fees still apply. Companies that have pressed the AAA for stricter claimant verification should expect little movement until a permanent chief is installed; near-term leverage remains in the contract and in the gateway questions a court or Process Arbitrator decides.

For claimants' firms. The affirmation requirement and existing fee structure are stable, which preserves the cost model on which current inventories were priced. Firms tracking whether the AAA will adopt AI tools in consumer or employment matters should watch for any expansion of the AI Arbitrator beyond construction cases; nothing announced so far extends it.

For in-house teams choosing a provider. The search for a permanent American Arbitration Association CEO is a governance event worth monitoring. Provider choice affects mass-filing economics more than almost any other clause term, and the next chief will set the AAA's posture on AI decision-making, mass-filing fees and competition with JAMS and newer providers.

Frequently asked questions

Who is the new CEO of the American Arbitration Association?

Steve Errick, the AAA's chief development officer and a former board member, became interim president and CEO on October 2, 2026. The AAA-ICDR board is conducting a formal search for a permanent CEO.

Why did Bridget McCormack leave the AAA?

She left to take a role focused on using artificial intelligence in courts and judicial chambers. She is joining Clio as general manager, judiciary, a hire Clio announced on September 16, 2026.

How long was McCormack CEO of the AAA?

From February 2023 until October 2, 2026, roughly three years and eight months. Before that she served a decade on the Michigan Supreme Court, including as Chief Justice from 2019 to 2022.

Will the AAA mass arbitration rules or fees change?

Not because of the transition. The January 2024 Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules and flat initiation fees of $3,125 and $8,125 stay in force until the AAA publishes an amendment, and none has been announced.

Is the AAA AI Arbitrator still available?

Yes. It remains an opt-in option for documents-only construction cases, with a human arbitrator signing every award, and the board says its technology roadmap is unchanged.

Does the leadership change affect my pending AAA arbitration?

No. Pending cases proceed under the same rules and before the same appointed arbitrators, and a change in the provider's management is not a ground to vacate an award or to avoid an AAA clause.