By Something worth noting is happening in Boston on June 12, 2026. The American Arbitration Association and Suffolk University Law School are hosting a one-day conference called Arbitration and Mediation in the Age of AI — and the day after that, a legal AI hackathon picks up where the conference leaves off. For anyone working in dispute resolution, this is one of the more important events of the year.
The conversation around AI and the law has been running for a few years now. A lot of it has been speculative — what might happen, what could change, what lawyers should watch out for. The Arbitration and Mediation in the Age of AI conference is different. It is focused on what is already happening, with live demonstrations of tools that are already deployed in real proceedings.
Why ADR and AI Are Colliding Now
Arbitration and mediation are types of alternative dispute resolution — structured processes for settling legal conflicts outside of court. Both have existed for generations. Both save clients significant time and money compared to full litigation. And both are now being reshaped by artificial intelligence in ways that practitioners can no longer afford to treat as a future concern.
AI is being built into case management systems, document review workflows, decision drafting, and pre-proceeding simulation tools. The Arbitration and Mediation in the Age of AI program is being organized by an institution that has processed more ADR cases than virtually any other in the world — the AAA, marking its centennial in 2026, having operated as the world’s largest private ADR provider since 1926. When the AAA deploys an AI tool, it carries the weight of a century of institutional practice behind it.
The AI Tools That Will Be Demonstrated
The Arbitration and Mediation in the Age of AI conference will feature live demonstrations of the AAA’s AI Arbitrator — a tool that evaluates the merits of a dispute, applies legal reasoning to the facts, and produces a draft award for a human arbitrator to review and finalize. The human arbitrator still makes the final call. But the tool creates a documented analytical record and cuts down the time between hearing and decision considerably.
Alongside that, attendees at the Arbitration and Mediation in the Age of AI conference will see the AAA’s Resolution Simulator in action. This tool gives legal teams a non-binding simulated outcome before formal proceedings begin — effectively a pressure test for their position. When both sides can run a simulation and see a projected result, the dynamics of settlement conversations change. Clients want to know whether they should fight or settle. A credible AI simulation, built on actual case data, gives counsel something concrete to point to.
A third project on the program is the AAA-Suffolk ODR Innovation Clinic, which is one of the signature access-to-justice initiatives tied to the Arbitration and Mediation in the Age of AI agenda. Suffolk Law students are building a customized version of the ODR.com platform to help people navigate uncontested divorce filings. The clinic was started after former Massachusetts Probate and Family Court Judge John Casey observed individuals being turned away from the court registry because their paperwork was incomplete. An AI-guided workflow can walk self-represented litigants through every required field before they arrive. That is access to justice in a practical, immediate sense.
The Ethical Questions the Profession Has to Answer
At the Arbitration and Mediation in the Age of AI conference, the harder questions are not avoided. AI ethics in arbitration is on the agenda directly, and it needs to be. An arbitration award is binding. If AI-assisted reasoning leads to a flawed outcome, the consequences for the parties involved are real and often irreversible.
Questions around bias in training data, transparency of AI reasoning, disclosure obligations to parties, data security in commercial disputes, and accountability when a human arbitrator adopts a flawed AI recommendation — none of these have settled answers yet. The Arbitration and Mediation in the Age of AI conference brings together the practitioners, technologists, and policymakers who need to work through them together. That combination is rarer than it should be.
The Legal AI Hackathon: From Discussion to Development
On June 13 — the morning after the Arbitration and Mediation in the Age of AI conference — a full-day hackathon hosted by ODR.com, the AAA-ICDR Institute, and Suffolk University Law School gives participants the chance to build something. Law students, legal practitioners, and software developers work in teams on real problems at the intersection of AI and dispute resolution. The ideas from Friday’s sessions become the raw material for Saturday’s prototypes.
Attendees of the ODR2026 Forum at Harvard University are encouraged to join. Registration is separate and available at vibeodr.com. For law students in particular, this is an unusually direct path into the legal tech space — a room full of practitioners and builders working on the same problem, with no barrier between the two.
Event Details
| Conference: Friday, June 12, 2026 — 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET Hackathon: Saturday, June 13, 2026 Location: Suffolk University Law School, 120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 Fee: $195 — includes coffee breaks, lunch, and cocktails CLE Credits: Available in CT, ME, NH, NJ, NY, and RI via CeriFi LegalEdge Conference Registration: feature.adr.org/2026-AAA-Suffolk-AI-Conference Hackathon Registration: vibeodr.com |
The practitioners who will serve their clients best in this environment are not the ones who wait to see how AI in dispute resolution settles out. They are the ones who get in the room while the decisions are still being made. June 12 is one of those rooms.