2025 Melnick Symposium: The Next Century of Challenges for the FAA

The Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution’s Annual Melnick Symposium: The Next Century of Challenges for the Federal Arbitration Act

📅 Friday, November 7, 2025 | 🕘 8:30 AM – 3:45 PM |📍 Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law — 3rd Floor Lounge, 55 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

⚖️ CLE credit for this event is pending approval.

As the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) enters its second century, arbitration remains one of the most contested areas of modern dispute resolution. Praised for efficiency and accessibility, it is also challenged for issues of fairness, transparency, and equity. This year’s Melnick Symposium will explore how arbitration must evolve to meet the demands of justice in the decades ahead.

Throughout the day, leading scholars and practitioners will examine three central themes:

• Responding to Power Imbalances: Arbitration often reflects disparities in bargaining power between parties. This session will investigate how arbitration can be restructured or reimagined to mitigate these inequities and ensure fairness.
• Ensuring Diversity Among Neutrals: The legitimacy of arbitration depends on representation. This discussion will highlight ways to ensure that arbitrators and mediators reflect the diverse identities and experiences of the parties who appear before them.
• Harnessing the Power of Technology: From online dispute resolution platforms to the role of artificial intelligence, technology is reshaping arbitration practice. This session will address the opportunities and challenges of integrating innovation into arbitration while protecting due process.

By addressing these themes, the Symposium seeks to imagine what the FAA’s next century should look like and how arbitration can become a more equitable, inclusive, and effective system of justice.

Breakfast and lunch will be provided.

📧 Questions? Please contact the Associate Symposium Editor, Nathan Tinovsky at [email protected].

Info: The Keynote Plenary will feature Professor Myriam Gilles of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in conversation with Julie Roginsky, co-founder of Lift Our Voices. Together, they will examine how forced arbitration has long served to silence vulnerable parties and prevent accountability, and how advocacy and scholarship have combined to challenge that system. From Roginsky’s role in securing passage of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act to Professor Gilles’s work testifying before Congress and speaking out against forced arbitration, this conversation will highlight the trailblazing efforts that have reshaped the debate and continue to drive reform.

Info: Arbitration has long been a cornerstone of dispute resolution, but concerns persist about how the process handles disparities in resources, bargaining power, and influence between parties. This panel will explore how arbitration can adapt to meet these challenges in the next century, focusing on reforms and best practices that promote fairness, credibility, and equitable outcomes.

Info: The legitimacy of arbitration depends not only on fair procedures, but also on the credibility of the decision-makers themselves. Yet many arbitral rosters fail to reflect the diversity of the parties who appear before them. This panel will address why representation among neutrals matters, how a lack of diversity can perpetuate systemic imbalances, and what steps can be taken to broaden the pool of arbitrators in the decades ahead.

Info: From artificial intelligence to online dispute resolution platforms, technology is reshaping how arbitration is conducted. This panel will explore how new tools can enhance efficiency, accessibility, and transparency—while also raising questions about security, bias, and the role of human judgment. Panelists will consider how arbitration can responsibly harness technological innovation to meet the challenges of the next century.

Host or Publisher Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution and ADRCHS