Recorded live at Legalweek 2025, and released now as a summer episode, this conversation explores why the American Arbitration Association created the role of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), and what that move signals about the organization's forward-looking strategy. Bridget and Zach speak with Michael Joseloff, the AAA’s newly appointed CMO, whose distinguished media career sharpened his belief that powerful storytelling is foundational to modern marketing. With a background spanning Paramount/CBS and Fortune, Joseloff brings a fresh perspective to legal marketing—one rooted in strategy, storytelling, and building trust.
At the AAA, Joseloff is tasked with refining, elevating, and strategically sharing the organization’s mission. His work marks a decisive next chapter: using narrative as a tool for trust, engagement, and purpose.
Key Takeaways
- Storytelling as Strategic Marketing: Michael’s background in media taught him that how a brand’s story is told can define how it’s understood. Now at the AAA, he plans to bring that same strategic clarity to sharing the organization’s mission and building alignment, trust, and relevance among legal professionals, businesses, and consumers alike. For a nearly century-old organization, storytelling isn’t just about brand building—it’s about strategic positioning for what comes next.
- Marketing the AAA During a Time of Industry Disruption: The legal sector, once resistant to rapid innovation, is now embracing technology at unprecedented speed. As the AAA integrates legal tech and AI, Michael draws a powerful parallel between the media disruptions he once navigated and the legal evolutions unfolding today. He understands that marketing in an era of change is rooted in clarity, empathy, and leadership. His experience guides how the AAA shapes its messaging in a world where dispute resolution must feel accessible, modern, and human.
- Nobody Likes Being in a Dispute: The AAA faces a distinct challenge: conflict, by nature, is something we hope to avoid. Michael embraces this paradox as a unique marketing challenge: to position the AAA not as a reactive service, but as a steady guide through uncertainty. Every element of the dispute resolution process is crafted with care and intention, and the AAA works to improve and expand how people move through conflict because the organization understands what’s at stake. It’s crucial that this thoughtfulness is clearly communicated.
With over 500,000 new AAA cases each year, the CMO’s role extends beyond messaging—it’s about reducing the stress and uncertainty that often accompany conflict and evolving the AAA so that it is seen as a reliable, supportive presence when it matters most.
Final Thought
The creation of the CMO role at AAA—and the decision to appoint someone with a media background—demonstrates a nearly 100-year-old organization’s returning to its roots in a modern way. The founders of the AAA were visionary storytellers and advocates for dispute resolution. Today, the organization is not simply modernizing its operations; it is positioning itself to lead the next era of alternative dispute resolution by blending tradition with innovation.
Transcript
Zach Abramowitz: Michael, you came to the AAA from Paramount CBS. You've spent your career in media. What initially attracted you to a media career in the first place, and specifically in a marketing role?
Michael Joseloff: it's a vibrant space. It's a space of constant change and invention and reinvention. The business model is completely going upside down. So it adds all kinds of interesting challenges for marketers. But that's what makes it really fun. You've got to be learning, you've got to be thinking and growing and trying new things. Following the audience even sometimes when the business model doesn't follow as quickly.
Bridget McCormack: The business model legal is also like twisting and turning right now. I'm glad you have that experience in media but sticking with media just for a minute. What are you most proud of from your career in media
Michael Joseloff: in, if you think about media, there are always strong personalities, creators, voices, storytellers that are front and center. When I worked on 60 Minutes, they thought of that show not as just, individual reporters, but really as a team, a group collectively that comes together each week to tell the stories that they want to tell. So, for me, the team piece has always been really important. And that's what I'm also most proud of, is the people that I've worked with, the teams that I've built the leaders that I've supported. I feel like it's like when you guys walk the floor here at Legal Week, every five feet, you're running into someone, it's that kind of tight community where you've spent a lot of time and had a lot of impact in. So, for me, media is that kind of team and that community feel.
Zach Abramowitz: Yes and Bridget was talking about, ending that before that legal's having its own moments, with transformation. But obviously I think, most people who may not be aware of what's going on, legal can look at the media industry over, the last 20 years and obviously see an industry that's been undergoing its own transformation. How did that impact your work as you were in an industry that was undergoing so much change?
Michael Joseloff: Yes, I think it's a real challenge to balance how you grow in advance media, you could not rest on your laurels. There is no given that people will show up. Like it may be once happened in the business. There used to be some predictability. There used to be some consistency. And while the skeleton of that still exists in some ways it's just how people are spending their time is so radically different. In media, I think again, I think about the storytelling aspect, the information aspect, and that to me feels like a really interesting parallel to what we're doing in terms of how we inform the legal community tell stories for them.
Bridget McCormack: So you had a good relationship with your legal team when you were in media or, yes.
Michael Joseloff: It's funny. Yes, we, some of my team members, we would joke that we became like paralegals part-time paralegals by doing all of the work. Again, because you're dealing with the privacy work, but also the contracts the relationships with vendors. There’s a lot of people that come in to support media. But also once you create media, if you're going to distribute it, if you're going to have it appear in different places. And connect with audiences everywhere. There's other type of legal work that's in the mix.
Bridget McCormack: Legal is everywhere. There's this like famous old blower of your article by Austin Sarat. Zach, maybe you know it, the title of the article is The Law is All Over. because It is, it's like it seeps into every part of your life. But people say that about media too, right? The cliche is every company is now a media company. Does that. Mean anything. What does that mean to you?
Bridget McCormack: Do you and are you going to try and make us a media company? because we're not a media company. Yes. We're a dispute resolution company. I just want you to know.
Michael Joseloff: Oh, now you're telling me. No, that makes sense. I'll go back to the marketing through line, because that's really been the core of my career trajectory. It happens to be in media. That has its own kind of fun dynamic that we've talked about, but really the marketing through line and marketing can mean so many different things as you're looking to, again, grow the business, activate your customers, build audience, build relationships, and inspire them enough to actually get out their wallets and transact. Or make that commitment to you as a partner? So within media, there's a lot of different ways that marketing comes to life. There's brand marketing, there's strategy, there's data and analytics and customer analytics that you're using all the time to try to understand your audience, both who your current audience is and who your potential prospective audience could be.
There's also, product marketing there is, integrated or partner marketing, which is how you tell brands in the media world, how you help brands tell their stories across your media platforms. And so those are some of the experiences that I've had that I think make a lot of sense for the AAA or where I think could really add value because I help lots of different enterprise technology companies, business services firms financial services firms. Talk to their key business communities across fortune, across time, across money, all of those platforms, both digital in conferences through video, social, print, all of the different touch points, helping those marketers and those brands tell their stories to the customers they wanted to reach. And I think that's something where here we want to tell our story not only to the legal community.
And the practitioners, all of the people who are interested in what we're doing in terms of building our own proprietary technology and tools, how we're using ai the lessons that we've garnered, but also the resourcing we're bringing back into the industry. The partnerships that we have, those are all stories we want to tell and I'm excited to help, figure that out, both to, again, the legal community, but the broader. Business community at large. Where this is a huge a huge intersection. To your point, legal touches everything.
Bridget McCormack: Yes.
Zach Abramowitz: I think it's so interesting because, the media industry and how a publisher website would make money with the rise of the internet was, when we think about AI 1.0. There was this sort of initial. Web 1.0 movement where it's says, oh, we're just going to make money from advertising. What Michael described and what I know from, my limited media experience is that publishers really got, at some point very creative and like the website and the marketing might have just been like the advertising. Might have just been like the starting point. Yes. That they were now generating revenue through conferences. Through like strategic storytelling for top brands. For creating communities. And I think that sort of wider approach is useful when we think about like law today where there's this sort of feeling of okay, so is AI for law?
And is AI disrupts or gets injected into the legal industry, into our profession. We tend to think, okay, so what is, what's that going to mean for like how lawyers bill right now? And then you take a step back and you wonder will maybe lawyers 5, 10, 15 years out will start generating revenues or will start implementing certain behaviors? That they just never thought they would once upon a time, right? When like a CBS and ABC in the 1970s wasn't going to run a user conference, with brand sponsorships and telling their stories and it's just I feel like there's so many learnings from this industry for legal as we're having it normal.
Bridget McCormack: We've talked about it a million times, Zach, but Legal's been really successful for, over 200 years at avoiding any tech disruption whatsoever. And that's over now. Like now, and if you've seen anything from Legal Week, legal Tech is like the hottest tech sector right now, and I think it's the hottest tech sector because it's being able to avoid. Disruption like for so long, so successfully. And to have someone with your sophistication who's already been through a transformation of an industry will be pretty great at the start of this process, we're in a unique corner of legal, because I always call it the operating system of legal, maybe the most important corner. But still a unique corner. But we too have all kinds of opportunities to reinvent ourselves and figure out how to introduce ourselves to the world. Most people like don't want to think about disputes, right? They don't want to have disputes. Our customers don't want to be repeat customers no matter how good our product is. They don't want to come back for more, right? If things go well for them, they're not coming back for more, but. As we know, everybody has disputes throughout the course of their lives. Every business does through the course of that business's life. How to think about introducing a product to people who don't want to buy it is really a fun project. I hope you think.
Michael Joseloff: Yes, absolutely. That's why it'll be really interesting to think about how we go ahead and tell our story and what are the stories that we tell and. Because they don't necessarily want us. Nobody wants us. And that's okay because conflict sucks and Yes. At the same time though, when you do inevitably have a conflict or, many of our, primary kind of core target users, attorneys, they are dealing with conflict all the time. Preventing conflict or trying to resolve it or address it. And so you want to be able to turn when you have a conflict to the right place. The right platform. Not have to think a lot about it. There's a lot of other things to think about. So the more we can do to underscore the value, the credibility, the trust that we bring the more I'm learning about the deep care and thoughtfulness that's put into every single aspect of the resolution process. Even just learning 500,000 cases, disputes. Every single year that this team is handling and handling in a very strategic way. There's a process that has been honed and optimized and continues to be for consistency across the organization. There's strict rules and parameters that ensure there's fairness and equitable treatment across all parties.
There's, real thoughtfulness in terms of the tools that we're building, these AI driven tools that are meant to make this more efficient and transparent and effective and clear throughout every step of the process so that when someone inevitably has to deal with a dispute, settle a dispute, arbitrate, mediate resolve it. They know that we will be there for them and help them accomplish the best possible outcome that they can.
Bridget McCormack: Yes,
Zach Abramowitz: I think, going back to your point about, everyone becoming a media company as I was preparing for Legal Week, listening to some, the most recent podcasts, it was crazy to me that three of the most, informative podcasts that I listened to.
Were from Sequoia, YCombinator and Kleiner Perkins. And we've seen VCs really make that move to, like becoming media companies
Bridget McCormack: so much.
Zach Abramowitz: Is so interesting Yes. About this, the creation of the CMO role and bringing someone from media into the AAA is that we've focused a lot on the future of the AAA publicly, but I think people don't realize how much time we've spent. Yes. Looking backwards at the AAA. And I think if you go back to the roots, the early founders of the AAA were real media geniuses. They were very savvy. And the fact that we've gone for so long without, A CMO is because I think everyone at the early days was a CMO and I think this is an opportunity, for the AAA to get back to that brand evangelism that's so core to our DNA.
Bridget McCormack: When you have a great founding story and founding mission, it's fun to tell it. I think. Even if people don't want to buy our product, they don’t want to need our product.
Michael Joseloff: But when they do, and they inevitably will.
Bridget McCormack: Yes.
Michael Joseloff: We will have their backs.
Bridget McCormack: That's right.
Michael Joseloff: I think it's funny you met the podcast as a tool, just as one platform of media for me, professionally, it's also just been such a key part of my professional growth. When I had been at Fortune for about seven years under the Time Inc. And Meredith umbrellas. And when eventually Meredith said, you know what? They bought Time Inc. And then they realized they wanted to divest Time, Fortune, and Money. They said, you have to pick one brand to go with, which was a really hard choice because I loved all three of them and had really been proud of a lot of the work across all three. But the opportunity at Fortune was to not only oversee marketing through the lens of telling our sponsor stories across platforms but it also meant building a subscription business from the ground up. And the CEO at the time said, yes, you can, you can have this role in this opportunity, but you've got to learn the subscription business. And podcasts became such a great platform to do that because it was real time, it was a conversation. It was. Really almost learning from your peers. Both successes, but also challenges. So that became a really key part of how we ended up building that subscription business at Fortune from the ground up.
The second one is actually this podcast when I was thinking about joining the AAA and what it might mean, I listened to the episode that you and Colin Rule talked about the acquisition of ODR and just. The unlock there was, not only the sort of the legacy and the incredible impact that AAA has had for the last one hundred years, but really the vision of where it's going and the ability to think in that capacity to look at how we can use digital technology to completely advance how we're doing dispute resolution. The seismic change that Colin talked about coming into the whole legal system, that for me was so inspiring to hear not only what it was, but what it could become.
And I think. That really was a key determining factor in wow, this really is a fantastic opportunity that I don't want to miss out on. Even though we're doing them in different ways to serve our audiences, help people understand the journey we're going on, we're not really a media company in that respect, but we are telling our story. And as that story gets told and carried across different platforms, it can make a difference and can make an impact.
Bridget McCormack: It's going to be fun. He's going to be great.
Zach Abramowitz: What I, I feel like he has this amazing benefit of it's going to be six months where he's got fresh eyes and not fresh eyes. As in like coming from a law firm or coming from a legal tech company that, or like a legal services provider that wasn't focused on disputes. Really coming with genuine, fresh eyes. And I feel like the next six months he's just got to write down everything that he sees because eventually, you're going to and having worked with the AAA now, for the last two years, I had that sort of fresh eyes moment, and then you learn the AAA and you learn dispute resolution and you don't have that new car smell anymore. And then there's something to that. This is your first Legal Week, it's amazing because sign of the times of where you're coming in this hotel, the Hilton where we're recording, has been the notoriously quirky site of legal week. But everyone comes back and you've seen the throngs of people here. But this is the last year that it's going to be at this hotel and it's moving to the Javits Center next year. And I think part of the reason it's moving is because, like Bridget said before, this is about the most exciting time. For tech and legal. I just, had coffee this morning this week with a writer who's been covering startups and she's now been asked to cover legal AI. That’s it. And there wouldn't have been enough to three years ago
Bridget McCormack: would've been a cushy job. I guess I'll cover
Zach Abramowitz: what, like Case Text? In other words, there wasn't that much to follow at the time, I think that you're coming in at such an interesting moment, but obviously fresh eyes, not asking you as an expert in legal tech right now. Like any sort of like initial observations. And like the swing of things about this conference, about, about legal.
Michael Joseloff: I know lawyers love Rob Lowe. He gave a really good keynote. It was actually packed. I'm half joking. But his keynote was really on embracing change and how do you embrace change and how you have to constantly be embracing that. And I think that kind of re represents what's going on here. Like this conference is busting out of every corner it is. Busting out there is conversation happening wherever you can find a two by two space to have it. And I think that adds to the kind of the energy and excitement and enthusiasm that's here that we've seen. Again I wasn't kidding. Before we walk five feet and it's oh, hi oh, this person, that person. And it's not only, the sort of the programmers and the developers it's, the whole kind the entrepreneurs.
Bridget McCormack: Yes.
Michael Joseloff: And even the creativity that's taken into how these different products can be used, can be presented, can be demoed. We had a really fun run in yesterday where I think you were actually deposed, right?
Zach Abramowitz: They're going to depose me at some point. Verbit, yes.
Michael Joseloff: It's basically can take, into court and do transcription and then help you analyze it. But the setup was really fun because they were right next to where they were going to be serving drinks right on the walkway. And so it's loud and bustling and they needed to show, how could this work in this kind of an environment?
Zach Abramowitz: Native to the conference. It was, yes.
Michael Joseloff: Was really cool. And they made it look like you're at the end of a deposition table but at the same time. It was a great way to flex Yes. What the product could be.
Bridget McCormack: Yes.
Michael Joseloff: It could show you all kinds of use cases for how this one particular tool could make a difference in your view, connect and make a difference. Many aspects of what you're doing in your legal practice. So yes, that was exciting. So the answer is Rob Lowe. The answer is lots of excitement. The answer is maybe the Javits will give more space. I've only been there for the Salesforce takeovers, which are just like.
Bridget McCormack: That's insane massive,
Michael Joseloff: And then the car show, so we'll see where we fit in between.
Bridget McCormack: Zach and I both had to take the bar there, so we have a little PTSD about the Javits Center.
Bridget McCormack: Oh, wow. So we're not sure if we're coming, actually, no. We'll be there. We'll figure it out. It's
Michael Joseloff: the new wing, so it's likes a whole new area.
Bridget McCormack: Okay,
Michael Joseloff: The north end of the Javits Center?
Zach Abramowitz: Yes. I'll, I will never forget the nervous people studying, before walking into the test and I was like. Please. Dude, if you're studying now, this is not going to go great. Yes. Michael, thanks for joining us. The really excited that this role was created and that the AAA was lucky enough to get you to come on board. So we're very excited about that.
Michael Joseloff: Appreciate that. Thank you. And Bridget, thank you. And to the team for. believing in me and welcoming me in. It's been awesome. The first few weeks have been fantastic, so thank you.
Bridget McCormack: We’re so happy to have you.