Robert Ambrogi Blog
Maya Markovich, a leading figure in legal and justice technology known for her work in advancing accessible, equitable and innovative legal solutions, has joined the American Arbitration Association and its international division, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, as vice president of the AAA-ICDR Institute, the organization’s thought leadership and research arm.
In this role, Markovich will help drive the institute’s mission and strategic plan to transform dispute resolution, expand access to justice, and provide both fairness in arbitration and pathways to conflict resolution, the AAA said. Her responsibilities will include supporting entrepreneurship in ADR and projects such the Suffolk Law Online Dispute Resolution Innovation Clinic.
Her work will also include identifying partnership opportunities with courts, academic institutions and other organizations.
“I will be doing a lot of the work on prioritizing the big ideas, helping map the institute’s approach of advancing the goals of promoting dispute resolution and access to justice,” Markovich told me.
Markovich cofounded the Justice Technology Association in 2021 to support startups developing technology solutions for underserved populations. The JTA provides mentorship, funding access, and advocacy, supporting over 40 startups that address issues such as eviction, family law, and immigration.
Markovich will continue to serve as executive director of the JTA, she told me, and she believes that joining the AAA will enable her to amplify her efforts to drive change in the legal system.
“Joining the AAA-ICDR Institute is an incredible opportunity to implement initiatives that improve access and fairness in dispute resolution and the legal field,” she said.
Before forming the JTA, Markovich was chief growth officer at Dentons’ Nextlaw Labs and Nextlaw Ventures, the legal industry’s first tech-focused innovation catalyst and venture fund. She is an innovator in residence at the University of California Law San Francisco’s LexLab and serves on the boards of advisors at Responsible AI in Legal Services, LawTechUK and Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Innovation Lab.
Her work has earned her multiple honors, including having been named to the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center’s Woman of Legal Tech in 2018, the Technolawgist’s Woman Leading Legal Tech in 2019 and one of ITLA’s five Influential Women of Legal Tech in 2020. In 2023, she was named to the Fastcase 50, which honors legal industry visionaries. She is also a 2025 fellow-elect of the College of Law Practice Management.
In 2023, Markovich made news when she and Tom Gordon, executive director of Responsive Law, an organization that represents the consumers’ voice in the legal system, co-authored an op-ed in which they argued that reforms in the regulation of the practice of law, such as those that have been implemented in Utah, could have prevented a controversy that erupted around the consumer-facing legal site DoNotPay.
The op-ed was to be published by the American Bar Association’s Center for Innovation, but at the last minute, the center pulled the article, reportedly due to “political challenges” within the ABA.
When that happened, I published the op-ed on my site, and had Markovich and Gordon on my LawNext podcast to discuss their views on regulatory reform.
The AAA’s hiring of Markovich continues a series of moves to make the nearly 100-year-old organization more innovative, spearheaded by Bridget Mary McCormack, the former chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, who took over the helm of the AAA as its president and chief executive officer in January 2023, and who, as I noted when she was on my LawNext podcast last year, was credited with having “supercharged” the AAA’s innovation efforts.