Abstract
In recent decades, increased use of forced arbitration provisions has blunted the impact of regulatory schemes that are enforced through private civil litigation. The major institutional driver of expansions in arbitration law has been the Supreme Court. But federal administrative agencies and executive departments can play an important, if underappreciated, role in addressing harmful uses of arbitration.
This essay--prepared for the University of Illinois Law Review's symposium on the Biden administration’s first 100 days--highlights the tools available to agencies and executive departments to address the effects of forced arbitration and offers suggestions for how they might be used. Executive branch action alone cannot undo all of the arbitration’s effects on private regulatory enforcement; but it can do much to restore this engine of the U.S. legal system.