2019 ODR International Forum: ‘Online Dispute Resolution is here to stay’

Singapore presentation at ODR 2019

The woman’s last name was called a few times in Collin County Court in North Texas before she finally appeared, 15 minutes late, with a baby in her arms and tears in her eyes. As Ben White, the court’s senior IT manager, watched her rush into the courtroom, he assumed the woman couldn’t find a babysitter and her job didn’t offer paid time off. He wondered if the money she was losing by being in court that day might cause her to go into debt.

“I realized right then that ODR (online dispute resolution) was meant for her,” said White, a panelist at the recent 2019 ODR International Forum.

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The conference was attended by about 210 people from 17 countries. eBay, Alibaba and hundreds of other companies have been using online dispute resolution for several years to resolve disputes related to the sales of goods and services. Only within the last few years have courts seen ODR as a realistic way to resolve lawsuits by allowing litigants to use their phones and computers to resolve cases without stepping foot in a courtroom.

The forum, co-sponsored by NCSC, was an opportunity for court technologists and administrators, academic researchers and private-sector entrepreneurs -- from nations such as Singapore and New Zealand to England and Israel – to share ideas and experiences about what has worked well, and what hasn’t. In the United States, ODR is scattered in municipal courts in 17 states, used mostly for small-claims cases, but some courts also used it to settle traffic and family law cases.

Click here to read about the many interesting sessions at the conference from the NCSC website.