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When Companies Run the Courts: How Forced Arbitration Became America’s Secret Justice System
The definitive exposé of forced arbitration, the secret justice system that protects abusers, employers, and powerful corporations
“Ballou is one of our most insightful analysts of the modern American legal system. This careful study should be required reading.” —Simon Johnson, Nobel laureate and coauthor of Power and Progress
America has a hidden justice system. There, decisions are made in secret, and “judges” are paid for by the companies and abusers who are being sued. Victims usually lose. But when they do, they cannot appeal, and they cannot turn to real courts for help.
They are trapped in this system, and quite likely, so are you. You joined it when you accepted the Terms and Conditions on a website, opened a new credit card, or started a new job. When you did, you agreed to be trapped in this secret justice system called “forced arbitration.” Through its secrecy and corruption, forced arbitration helps companies cheat their workers, helps banks deceive their customers, and helps predators act with impunity. If companies and the very powerful often seem beyond the reach of the law, it’s because they are, and forced arbitration is the reason.
Yet despite the fact that forced arbitration profoundly shapes our lives, almost nothing has been written about it. Brendan Ballou’s When Companies Run the Courts changes that. It shows how forced arbitration came to be, how it makes your life worse, and how we might escape it.
“Ballou is one of our most insightful analysts of the modern American legal system. This careful study should be required reading.” —Simon Johnson, Nobel laureate and coauthor of Power and Progress
America has a hidden justice system. There, decisions are made in secret, and “judges” are paid for by the companies and abusers who are being sued. Victims usually lose. But when they do, they cannot appeal, and they cannot turn to real courts for help.
They are trapped in this system, and quite likely, so are you. You joined it when you accepted the Terms and Conditions on a website, opened a new credit card, or started a new job. When you did, you agreed to be trapped in this secret justice system called “forced arbitration.” Through its secrecy and corruption, forced arbitration helps companies cheat their workers, helps banks deceive their customers, and helps predators act with impunity. If companies and the very powerful often seem beyond the reach of the law, it’s because they are, and forced arbitration is the reason.
Yet despite the fact that forced arbitration profoundly shapes our lives, almost nothing has been written about it. Brendan Ballou’s When Companies Run the Courts changes that. It shows how forced arbitration came to be, how it makes your life worse, and how we might escape it.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published May 12, 2026
About the author
Brendan Ballou
2 books62 followersBrendan Ballou is a federal prosecutor and served as Special Counsel for Private Equity in the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. Previously, he worked in private practice, and before that, in the National Security Division of the Justice Department, where he advised the White House on counterterrorism and other policies. He graduated from Columbia University and Stanford Law School.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 16, 2026
Super important and readable! We are unwittingly bound to arbitration with our schools, employers, credit card companies, car companies, banks, etc. with no possibility for redress through the court system.
This part made me laugh: An executive at the Insurance Counselors Association of Texas complained, with admirable vividness, that “each year at the beginning of June, 100,000 law school graduates[,] with visions of faultily-designed football helmets dancing in their heads, descend upon American commerce and industry like a plague of locusts.”52 These lawyers, he said, were “chipping away at the likes of General Motors, Exxon, and AMF [American Machine and Foundry].”53
This part made me laugh: An executive at the Insurance Counselors Association of Texas complained, with admirable vividness, that “each year at the beginning of June, 100,000 law school graduates[,] with visions of faultily-designed football helmets dancing in their heads, descend upon American commerce and industry like a plague of locusts.”52 These lawyers, he said, were “chipping away at the likes of General Motors, Exxon, and AMF [American Machine and Foundry].”53
April 1, 2026
It’s my first time learning about the far-reaching influence of forced arbitration and just how easily bought/ manipulated the judicial process can be through this. I feel like most American laypeople have an idea that corporations control all branches of government, but I first picked up this book because I wanted to learn more about the specifics. Presenting multiple case studies, including some that have made their way into popular culture like the McDonald’s hot coffee lady oR the family that unknowingly signed away their rights to sue Disney via streaming service subscription, Ballou explains how large companies have forced all American consumers into waiving off their rights to resolve legal disputes in court and participate in class actions (and even scarier is how corporate PR has twisted the significance of both of those cases to convince the public that what they’re doing is nOt incredibly predatory). This is one of those issues where over 80% of both Democrats and Republicans can agree that they want to bring an end to forced arbitration- but clearly since it’s controlled by the 1% and poorly understood/ overlooked by the people, we’re still prey to this system. Boycotts are unfortunately nearly impossible, due to the widespread nature of this phenomenon. However,the author not only paints an accessible picture of the bleak legal panorama for the average person, backed by sources, but then goes on to give the reader hope that change is possible, citing instances where forced arbitration has been banned for certain kinds of cases, like sexual violence via the #MeToo movement. I encourage everyone to read up on this issue and potentially start taking our rights back from our employers and the companies we consume products and services from.
June 9, 2026
In searching to see if anyone had written a book about forced arbitration and how it’s abused by companies and corporations, I was delighted to find a forthcoming work by Brendan Ballou. Attorney Ballou graduated from Columbia in 2009 with a BA in philosophy. In 2013 he started his studies in law at Stanford and graduated in 2016. In March 2020 he became a Special Counsel at the US Department of Justice in the Antitrust Division. His book Plunder: Private Equity's Plan to Pillage America came out in 2023.
As someone who got forced into arbitration when Armstrong Steel sued me for breach of contract, I knew I had to reach out and ask for review copy. My own manuscript: Armstrong Steel Sued Me: A Case Study in Corporate Greed documents a blow by blow account of representing oneself pro se and trying to file in forma pauperis, trying to obtain litigation financing which is only available to law firms, and eventually filing a Motion to Vacate the Award pro se in Colorado while living in Nevada.
Attorney Ballou’s work, as you can see, is personal. His writing style is that of someone telling a story over dinner. Unlike most attorneys, he speaks directly to the reader. There is no need to persuade anyone that arbitration clauses in consumer contracts is an evil that should never have been allowed, but his giving voice to victims of families of nursing home patients who tried to file lawsuits against facilities for negligence are heart breaking. Families of individuals who fell sick on a cruise or the story of a nun being raped in an assistant living facility will turn. Your stomach. And so begins the history of one-sided adhesion contracts which we all sign which for the most part contain what’s called a “mandatory” arbitration clause.
When Companies Run the Courts: How Forced Arbitration Became America's Secret Justice System by Brendan Ballou and PublicAffairs will make you mad. It should.
The accounts of how the secrecy (aka confidential clause) keeps victims gagged so that the company or corporation or abuser for that matter who made you sign a contract is allowed to arbitrate behind closed doors and any settlement will be kept quiet because the victim will have to sign a nondisclosure agreement is, as Mr. Ballou writes “cruel and lawless”.
Armstrong Steel threatened me and made me remove a post about being forced into arbitration to the PRIVATE Facebook Group set up to discuss the class action lawsuit filed against them. They had infiltrated the group. The arbitrator told me I could try to crowd source for an attorney (Go Fund Me) but then came back after Armstrong Steel re-read the version of the contract I had signed to forbid me from revealing the existence of the arbitration. I could try to raise $50,000 but I couldn’t tell anyone why I needed the money!
Ballous latest book provides insight into how the American Arbitration Association has handled highly publicized cases. Unfortunately, it does not talk about how the AAA provides waivers for THEIR fees so a pro se party can participate, but NOT the arbitrator’s fees and compensation. That prevents a poor person from filing a counterclaim! Almost no one knows that. I found out the hard way.
JAMS is AAA’s competitor. You will not get far into the book when you read about Elizabeth Bartholet and how she went to work for JAMS. These types of “stories” need to be shared far and wide. No spoilers!
As you go deeper into the book, you will see a spotlight on just how our court system works and I doubt you will want to learn much more. The battle between lower courts and appellate courts and the Supreme court and the differences between how each jurisdiction handled the same “matters of law” will make you angry. It’s like visiting a slaughterhouse right before going for a steak dinner.
Keep going, however. When you get to the rulings by Warren Burger (1907-1995), Antonin Scalia (1936-2016), John Roberts (1955 - ), Brett Kavanaugh (1965 -), and Neil Gorsuch (1967 -)[who incidentally presided over an appeal filed by Armstrong Steel when Gorsuch was on the 10th Circuit!] your eyes will truly be opened. I found this section of the book to be almost like reading People magazine with all the celebrity gossip. If you don’t want to buy the book for any other reason, buy it to read Chapters 5, 6, and 7.
If you are not an attorney and never followed law cases, do not worry. Attorney Ballou does not bog down the reader. You will not understand “unconscionable” in this paragraph from a legal point of view. I only learned the word and how it’s used to declare that a contract clause is unconscionable in trying to defend myself. A lot of words used in everyday speech have a much more profound or even different meaning when used by lawyers. With that said, here is a brief excerpt to give a taste of just what proponents of the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act are fighting against.
When a lower court found class-action waivers unconscionable, the Supreme Court in Concepcion overruled them. When another found that agreements making it economically impossible to bring suit were impermissible, the court in Italian Colors permitted them. And when yet another court found that that arbitrators were not allowed to consider "wholly groundless" arguments over their own power, the Supreme Court in Henry Schein found that they were.
Ultimately, lower courts were never good vehicles for cabining arbitration, because their decisions could be so easily overruled by deter-mined Supreme Court justices like Antonin Scalia and John Roberts. The best way to make lasting change was in Congress, and for decades, elected officials tried. Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin began introducing bills to prohibit forced arbitration as early as 1994 . . .
I hope this book becomes required reading in all 198 American Bar Association accredited law schools. Before anyone thinks about hiring an attorney to file a class action lawsuit against a company that lured you into signing an adhesion contract with a class action waiver hidden in a mandatory arbitration clause, read this book.
But more importantly, buy this book and donate it to your local library. Buy this book and donate another copy to your local Republican or Democrat or Independent party chapter. We need a united front to get Congress to abolish arbitration for consumers and employees. My stance is to abolish it altogether but let’s start with getting the FAIR Act passed first.
As someone who got forced into arbitration when Armstrong Steel sued me for breach of contract, I knew I had to reach out and ask for review copy. My own manuscript: Armstrong Steel Sued Me: A Case Study in Corporate Greed documents a blow by blow account of representing oneself pro se and trying to file in forma pauperis, trying to obtain litigation financing which is only available to law firms, and eventually filing a Motion to Vacate the Award pro se in Colorado while living in Nevada.
Attorney Ballou’s work, as you can see, is personal. His writing style is that of someone telling a story over dinner. Unlike most attorneys, he speaks directly to the reader. There is no need to persuade anyone that arbitration clauses in consumer contracts is an evil that should never have been allowed, but his giving voice to victims of families of nursing home patients who tried to file lawsuits against facilities for negligence are heart breaking. Families of individuals who fell sick on a cruise or the story of a nun being raped in an assistant living facility will turn. Your stomach. And so begins the history of one-sided adhesion contracts which we all sign which for the most part contain what’s called a “mandatory” arbitration clause.
When Companies Run the Courts: How Forced Arbitration Became America's Secret Justice System by Brendan Ballou and PublicAffairs will make you mad. It should.
The accounts of how the secrecy (aka confidential clause) keeps victims gagged so that the company or corporation or abuser for that matter who made you sign a contract is allowed to arbitrate behind closed doors and any settlement will be kept quiet because the victim will have to sign a nondisclosure agreement is, as Mr. Ballou writes “cruel and lawless”.
Armstrong Steel threatened me and made me remove a post about being forced into arbitration to the PRIVATE Facebook Group set up to discuss the class action lawsuit filed against them. They had infiltrated the group. The arbitrator told me I could try to crowd source for an attorney (Go Fund Me) but then came back after Armstrong Steel re-read the version of the contract I had signed to forbid me from revealing the existence of the arbitration. I could try to raise $50,000 but I couldn’t tell anyone why I needed the money!
Ballous latest book provides insight into how the American Arbitration Association has handled highly publicized cases. Unfortunately, it does not talk about how the AAA provides waivers for THEIR fees so a pro se party can participate, but NOT the arbitrator’s fees and compensation. That prevents a poor person from filing a counterclaim! Almost no one knows that. I found out the hard way.
JAMS is AAA’s competitor. You will not get far into the book when you read about Elizabeth Bartholet and how she went to work for JAMS. These types of “stories” need to be shared far and wide. No spoilers!
As you go deeper into the book, you will see a spotlight on just how our court system works and I doubt you will want to learn much more. The battle between lower courts and appellate courts and the Supreme court and the differences between how each jurisdiction handled the same “matters of law” will make you angry. It’s like visiting a slaughterhouse right before going for a steak dinner.
Keep going, however. When you get to the rulings by Warren Burger (1907-1995), Antonin Scalia (1936-2016), John Roberts (1955 - ), Brett Kavanaugh (1965 -), and Neil Gorsuch (1967 -)[who incidentally presided over an appeal filed by Armstrong Steel when Gorsuch was on the 10th Circuit!] your eyes will truly be opened. I found this section of the book to be almost like reading People magazine with all the celebrity gossip. If you don’t want to buy the book for any other reason, buy it to read Chapters 5, 6, and 7.
If you are not an attorney and never followed law cases, do not worry. Attorney Ballou does not bog down the reader. You will not understand “unconscionable” in this paragraph from a legal point of view. I only learned the word and how it’s used to declare that a contract clause is unconscionable in trying to defend myself. A lot of words used in everyday speech have a much more profound or even different meaning when used by lawyers. With that said, here is a brief excerpt to give a taste of just what proponents of the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act are fighting against.
When a lower court found class-action waivers unconscionable, the Supreme Court in Concepcion overruled them. When another found that agreements making it economically impossible to bring suit were impermissible, the court in Italian Colors permitted them. And when yet another court found that that arbitrators were not allowed to consider "wholly groundless" arguments over their own power, the Supreme Court in Henry Schein found that they were.
Ultimately, lower courts were never good vehicles for cabining arbitration, because their decisions could be so easily overruled by deter-mined Supreme Court justices like Antonin Scalia and John Roberts. The best way to make lasting change was in Congress, and for decades, elected officials tried. Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin began introducing bills to prohibit forced arbitration as early as 1994 . . .
I hope this book becomes required reading in all 198 American Bar Association accredited law schools. Before anyone thinks about hiring an attorney to file a class action lawsuit against a company that lured you into signing an adhesion contract with a class action waiver hidden in a mandatory arbitration clause, read this book.
But more importantly, buy this book and donate it to your local library. Buy this book and donate another copy to your local Republican or Democrat or Independent party chapter. We need a united front to get Congress to abolish arbitration for consumers and employees. My stance is to abolish it altogether but let’s start with getting the FAIR Act passed first.
Review of advance copy
Arbitration is conventionally defined as a form of alternative dispute resolution. It works, at least in theory, because of the great expense incurred in filing a traditional lawsuit in state or federal court. An arbitration award resulting from the arbitration process is usually legally binding on both sides and is enforceable by the courts. The process may be mandatory or consensual in consumer, employment, and commercial disputes. The author of this new book on business arbitration is a former federal prosecutor who has extensive private litigation experience. He has previously addressed the threat of private equity financing to our modern economic system. In this new book, he demonstrates the role played by arbitration and the differences between such arbitration and the judicial litigation route. The author identifies the basic problem with arbitration by labelling it “a secret justice system.” There is little transparency; decisions can not be appealed to any other judicial body; and judges are often paid by the very businesses seeking the arbitration. There are ways, however, of avoiding the system of forced arbitration. Part III of the book explores way in which the role of arbitration can be fixed. Other policy options seek ways of avoiding arbitration entirely. The author does note, however, that many reform efforts over the years have failed. Highly recommended for the reader concerned about the justice matters are often handled in the nation today.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
"When Companies Run the Courts" centers around the topic of forced arbitration - something that all of us have probably agreed to in a terms & conditions contract we didn't read. The book gives a sobering and startling look into a system that I for one didn't have much knowledge about. One of my favorite things about the book is that the author not only outlines the pitfalls and travesty of forced arbitration, but also spends time in the 3rd section outlining how we can make a difference and fight back.
While it is an informative book, I felt that the first two sections of the book were disjointed and jumped around a lot as far at topics and in chronology. I personally would have preferred a more streamlined approach to discussing the evolution of forced arbitration and where it is today. I also felt that the author was very repetitive in his words and phrasing, making some chapters feel longer than necessary. I prefer to see these type of books to have less of the author's political ideology and interpretations - these are meant to be informative and objective, not told through a subjective lens.
Overall, a good book to pick up if you are interested in learning more about forced arbitration and what you can do if you ever find yourself in that situation!
While it is an informative book, I felt that the first two sections of the book were disjointed and jumped around a lot as far at topics and in chronology. I personally would have preferred a more streamlined approach to discussing the evolution of forced arbitration and where it is today. I also felt that the author was very repetitive in his words and phrasing, making some chapters feel longer than necessary. I prefer to see these type of books to have less of the author's political ideology and interpretations - these are meant to be informative and objective, not told through a subjective lens.
Overall, a good book to pick up if you are interested in learning more about forced arbitration and what you can do if you ever find yourself in that situation!
June 5, 2026
“When Companies Run the Courts by Brendan Ballou is a clear and compelling investigation into the system of forced arbitration in the United States. The book explains how this private legal process operates outside of public courts and how it affects employees, consumers, and everyday people.
What stands out most is the clarity of explanation. The author breaks down a complex legal system into accessible language while showing how arbitration clauses are embedded into everyday agreements, often without people fully realizing the consequences.
The book also highlights the broader implications for justice and accountability, raising important questions about transparency, power, and fairness in modern legal systems.
Overall, this is a timely and important work of investigative nonfiction that will strongly appeal to readers interested in law, corporate accountability, and social justice issues.”
What stands out most is the clarity of explanation. The author breaks down a complex legal system into accessible language while showing how arbitration clauses are embedded into everyday agreements, often without people fully realizing the consequences.
The book also highlights the broader implications for justice and accountability, raising important questions about transparency, power, and fairness in modern legal systems.
Overall, this is a timely and important work of investigative nonfiction that will strongly appeal to readers interested in law, corporate accountability, and social justice issues.”
May 13, 2026
This book was even better than his PE book!
Did Not Finish
June 29, 2026Good book. Too serious for me. Lost interest.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews