Post-Pandemic FINRA Arbitration : To Zoom or Not to Zoom?

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised serious questions about disputants’ access to justice. Early on in the pandemic, in March 2020, U.S. courts shut down jury trials, judges conducted almost all appearances and arguments on videoconference, and clerks placed many civil cases on hold. Similarly, alternative dispute resolution forums shut down their in-person services, pivoting like the rest of the business world to videoconference technology to replace in-person meetings such as mediation sessions and arbitration hearings. This pivot led to rapid innovations and creativity almost overnight in the provision of dispute resolution services without any face-to-face interactions. Praise and critique alike followed. Empirical studies of arbitration experiences and outcomes during the first year of the pandemic yielded mixed results. Focusing on arbitration of securities industry disputes, this Article contributes to the literature exploring the impact of the pandemic on arbitration and explores whether parties arbitrating their disputes at FINRA Dispute Resolution Services during the pandemic have had access to justice equivalent to the justice that was available pre-pandemic. In particular, the Article analyzes data about FINRA customer arbitrations over the course of the pandemic, from onset in March 2020 through mid-2022, when most municipalities had lifted COVID-19 restrictions. The article relates empirical data on the outcome of FINRA customer arbitration during the pandemic, and then analyzes that data to explore whether Zoom arbitration at FINRA impedes access to justice