ABSTRACT
During the second decade of the twentieth century, political pressure began to build for some state legislatures to pass arbitration statutes that would officially sanction the judgments of private arbitration courts. Surprisingly, some of the support for these measures came from the legal profession. As arbitration continued to develop, the trend of increasing hostility by common-law courts toward arbitration began to be reversed in the 1830s in some states. However, arbitration was firmly in place before this gradual reversal in court attitude began; furthermore, arbitration developed in states whose courts were relatively slow to change, such as New York, as well as in states whose courts changed more rapidly. The American Arbitration Association (AAA), the successor to the lawyer-dominated Arbitration Society of America (ASA), also became an important participant in the political process. The ASA was formed in 1922 by a number of the leaders of the New York and National Bar Associations.
