Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services Equal Justice University Conference
Thanks to an invitation from Larry Bridgesmith, I’ll be speaking on the topic of Online Dispute Resolution and Self-Represented Litigants at the TALS Equal Justice University Conference in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on August 29, 2018. My remarks will center on the need to expand the definition of equal justice – I’ll post my notes here after the conference.
The Liverpool ODR conference proceeded as planned, with an opening speech by Lord Justice Briggs and, among other things, panels devoted to smart contracts and blockchain applications to aid in access to justice. The next edition of the International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution will be devoted to the panel presentations.
The recordings of the presentations at the Paris ODR Forum from 2017 are now available online. The home page of the video repository is at ICC Home, and the video of the session I chaired is just before lunch on the second day at Standards Panel.
The Justice report on digital exclusion, for which I was interviewed, has been released. The Justice group describes itself as follows:
Established in 1957 by a group of leading jurists, JUSTICE is an all-party law reform and human rights organisation working to strengthen the justice system – administrative, civil and criminal – in the United Kingdom. We are a membership organisation, composed largely of legal professionals, ranging from law students to the senior judiciary.
Our vision is of fair, accessible and efficient legal processes, in which the individual’s rights are protected, and which reflect the country’s international reputation for upholding and promoting the rule of law.
The final report is available here: JUSTICE.
I have been asked by Graham Ross, Host of the conference, to Co-Host the Justice Re-Imagined Symposium. Also, I’ll be speaking as part of one panel on the 27th, Standards for ODR, and moderating/speaking on another panel on the 28th, Smart Contracts: Threat or Opportunity? We will publish the proceedings of the symposium in the upcoming edition of the International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution. The symposium web site is at Justice Re-Imagined.
On May 22, I will appear via video, and via live web video, at a conference in Sao Paulo, Brasil – I’ve been asked to talk about Technology, Conflict Resolution, and the Future. A short video leading into the session can be found here, with subtitles: Video. The Portuguese language version of the notes for the video are found here: Video Notes. The notes for my live comments are found here: Session Notes.
I will not be attending the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum in Russia, but I did record a short set of comments for the Forum. After the conference, the video can be found on YouTube – Forum Comments.
I just started work on a training program associated with the InternetBar.Org “Invisibles” project. The volunteers who will work with the Rohingya refugees to rebuild shattered identities as digital identities will be called “PenPals” – I’ve begun working on a training program to certify the volunteers to work with individual refugees.
The Memphis VA project, providing mediation services to veterans who are referred by the social workers at the VA in Memphis, is finally ready for rollout. I was in Memphis last week doing some mediation techniques training for the social workers, and Trokt has held a final round of training for the attorney-mediators.
The Liverpool ODR conference (web site) will address a broad range of issues related to access to justice and the integration of technology into court systems worldwide. I will address “Artificial Intelligence and ODR: What we Can do and what we Should do.” I will talk about some of the things that the integration of technology will not do, at least not automatically. Here’s the program description:
As we push ahead with the integration of AI into online dispute resolution, we are overwhelmed with ideas about what AI can do. Now, as we push the boundaries of ODR, we should be talking about what impact AI can and will have on some of the less obvious and less discussed individuals and groups who may rely on ODR as a pathway to “justice” or problem solving.
