[M]any securities firms prevent employees from airing their complaints in court by requiring them to sign contracts obliging them to use arbitration. Women who are bound by such agreements are able to get into court only if a judge determines that they represent a class. High-profile cases like the Smith Barney lawsuit had sneaked into court before 1999 through a loophole: Wall Street arbitration panels weren't equipped to hear class-action cases, thus giving groups of women who joined in a class a back door into court. That loophole is likely to close as a result of an April Supreme Court decision in AT&T Mobility vs. Concepcion, in which the court said that AT&T could block a class-action suit and force customers into arbitration. "We will see major growth in employment arbitration," as a result of the AT&T case, says Alexander Colvin, a Cornell University associate professor of labor relations, whose research shows that employees fare worse in arbitration than they do in court.