On March 10, Director Richard Cordray of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“Bureau” or “CFPB”) presided over a Field Hearing on Pre-Dispute Arbitration Clauses, discussing what he described as the “key findings” of the Bureau’s long-awaited 700-page Arbitration Report to Congress published earlier that morning. Reed Smith attorney Deepa Zavatsky attended the hearing, where Cordray expressed the CFPB’s view that pre-dispute arbitration is not a “better alternative” to litigation, and he foreshadowed the Bureau’s likely…