Programme – ODR 2022

All times are Irish Standard Time (IST) = UTC+1.

All presentations are consecutive (not concurrent) other than Track A and Track B consecutive sessions on Day 3.

Registered online attendees will receive Zoom code by email on the morning of the Forum or sooner. Online presenters will receive connection details by email on May 1st or sooner.

Not registered? Register here!

Panels and Presentations Abstracts

Opening Address

Ethan Katsh

Director, National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution
Professor Emeritus of Legal Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Co-author (with Orna Rabinovich-Einy) of Digital Justice: Technology and the Internet of Disputes (2017, Oxford University Press)
Recipient of 2017 D’Alemberte-Raven Award from the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution

Panel Discussion

ODR Ethics and Standards – the revised NCTDR and ICODR ODR Standards

The National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution, birthplace of ODR, issued a first set of ODR Standards that it has revised in 2022. This panel will discuss the relevance and implications for employing ODR ethical standards and describe this latest work by NCTDR and the International Council for Online Dispute Resolution (ICODR).

In this panel discussion, panelists will explore the role for ODR standards in light of new risks that ODR raises and ways it can compound on-going ethical concerns for ADR and courts (e.g.: data security, confidentiality, power imbalances, and AI-enhanced and repeat player biases). Technological integration can fundamentally alter the shape of processes, allowing for transformation in the delivery of access to justice and resolution, and it provides possibilities for increased integration with other entities and mega systems that also can enhance the quality of services.

But there are ethical risks. Changes in dispute handling require alterations in historic ethical protocols and accountability mechanisms in ADR and the courts.

The revised ODR Standards are designed for those implementing, hosting, and providing ODR, and are pertinent for ODR platform, software, and system developers. They are offered to contribute to the ethical and accountable delivery of ODR across a wide spectrum of jurisdictions, sectors, and types of practice.

Panelists:

Leah Wing, Director, NCTDR

Daniel Rainey, Principal, Holistic Solutions, Inc

with input from members of the ICODR drafting committee:

Morenike Obi-Farinde, founder, ODRAfrica Network
Pablo Cortes, Professor, Chair of Civil Justice, University of Leicester
Alberto Elisavetsky, Founder and President, ODR LatinoAmerica

Panel Discussion

The New ODR Framework and its implications for Ethical Dispute Resolution

The National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution issued Framing the Parameters of Online Dispute Resolution in 2022. It seeks to outline the state of play of what constitutes ODR to stimulate further engagement about its parameters and ethical usage.

Questions about ODR’s definition have implications for both practice and regulation. Does holding a mediation session or a court hearing over video conferencing constitute ODR? Is an e-case management system used for document exchange and archiving in and of itself ODR? In what ways can infusion of technology into courts provide an opportunity to re-imagine and transform what 21st Century justice systems can be—and how can a definition of ODR affect this?

In the context of the pandemic-driven explosion in the use of video conferencing, a growing application of artificial intelligence, and the increasing appreciation for the risks in applying technology to dispute resolution, this panel will discuss a new ODR Framework and its implications for ethical dispute resolution.

Panelists:

Leah Wing, Director, NCTDR

Chris Draper, Managing Director, Trokt

Panel Discussion

Improving ODR’s Physical to Digital (P2D) Transition

Data-intensive ODR tools cannot produce meaningful results when the datasets being used do not accurately represent the physical world which they are attempting to portray. The quality of this “physical to digital” (P2D) transition is directly dependent upon the “gateway” being used. As a basic example of this problem, when video conferencing tools are used in ODR, many users are unable to accurately interpret a party’s emotions (i.e. their physical reality) by observing the individual on the screen (i.e. their digital representation). These challenges – and their impact on dispute resolution, justice, and truth in general – get more complex when ODR becomes further removed from direct human interaction in favour of automation or abstraction technologies like blockchain, the “metaverse”, or smart contracts.

This panel will review specific examples of gateway challenges, current solutions for these problems (e.g. concepts like “oracles”), the limitations of current solutions, and where our community needs to be focusing future research or standards efforts to ensure ODR systems employ ethical gateway designs.

Panelists:

Chris Draper, Managing Director, Trokt

Simon Boehme, Former Vice President of Partnerships for Legaler and President of Legaler Aid.

Presentation

Ethical Data Analytics and AI in ODR
Legal professionals have been thrust into innumerable forms of technology, which has both improved practice and created new challenges. Thus far, final decisions about most disputes continue
to be made by people. However, we are nearing computer-generated determinations, beyond negotiation strategies. Are there future opportunities for unbiased, value-free algorithms that determine disputes? If algorithms can determine disputes, will professionals continue to be necessary actors in dispute resolution? What are the functions that dispute resolution requires, how can human and AI capacity be used and integrated to advantage, and who decides. This session will outline AI and data analytics uses by courts and practitioners and raise questions about ethical challenges that may ensue.

Presenters:

Amy J. Schmitz, Professor, Ohio State Moritz College of Law

Janet Martinez, Director of the Martin Daniel Gould Center for Conflict Resolution at Stanford Law School

Presentation

The English Online Court: A Research Proposal for its Evaluation

The single most difficult challenge of modern-day courts has been their inequality in terms of access and outcomes. Much effort has been devoted to render court proceedings quicker, less expensive, and more comprehensible, especially for self-represented litigants in person (LIPs) as they represent the majority of court users in civil proceedings. There is an ongoing 1.4 billion court reform program in England and Wales, which is partly being financed via the sale of under-used court buildings. The reform, which accelerated in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, is increasing the use of technology for resolving disputes, and it is introducing new online processes, notably, the Online Civil Money Claims (OCMC), which current pilot has already processed over 300,000 small claims. Once finalised, the OCMC will become the first online court in the UK, processing the majority of civil claims in England and Wales.
This new digital court process provides a unique site for exploring the potential and challenges associated with the shift to online proceedings in terms of access to justice, equality of outcomes and perceptions of fairness. To that end, our project proposes to evaluate how small claims (such as debts, parking fines and personal injury claims from road traffic accidents) are resolved online and offline by LIPs participating in court proceedings, both as claimants and defendants. We will draw on objective data from judgments and the case management system from the OCMC as well as on subjective data from surveying and interviewing LIPs that participated in the OCMC. We will compare the findings with those obtained by represented parties and with the LIPs who chose the offline/paper route in court.

This project will explore questions such as: which types of LIPs use online/offline court proceedings? Are online proceedings indeed quicker and less costly? Do similar cases result in different outcomes across various processes and channels of communication? Do online processes increase cooperation and settlements? Do online processes reduce the need for legal representation? What is the LIPs’ perception of procedural justice when they participate in online hearings or in documents-only processes? This project will help us to (1) improve our understanding of the effect of digitalization on LIPs in court, including how settlement is promoted; (2) unearth the experience of LIPs as claimants and defendants using different processes and media; and (3) analyse access and substantive justice for LIPs when they go to the main digital court process. On a practical level, the research findings will provide important insights on the design and delivery of online dispute resolution processes for LIPs, and their experience in terms of accessibility and fairness. By empirically understanding what elements of the digital dispute resolution process work well and those that need improvement, there is a unique opportunity to identify design changes in the digital court, so that it can become more accessible and fairer for LIPs, who represent the largest group of court users, and therefore whose views determine the level of public confidence in the English legal system.

Presenter:

Pablo Cortes, Chair in Civil Justice, University of Leicester, UK

Presentation:

Co-ordination on Cyber-justice Between the Courts of Europe:
Developments leading to the birth of the European Cyber-justice Network

Whilst court administrations/justice departments were not amongst the early adopters of ODR they clearly, as gatekeepers to the majority of civil disputes, can have an enormous influence on ODR and, in particular, the speed at which ODR becomes adopted as a widely accepted practice in dispute resolution. Systems being rolled out by or for courts have been piecemeal as individual administrations pursue research into their own future. Early systems tend to be in either case management and/or e-filing but little in the way of e-negotiation or aids to resolution. What seems common between courts worldwide are the existing challenges to the courts of rising costs, process delay and a growth in the numbers of citizens unable, due to cost, to pursue/defend litigation.
In Europe, what is bringing court administrations together in their development of ODR has been the issue of human rights and access to justice, which explains why an overall influence in the sharing of knowledge and experience in ODR has been the Council of Europe. This was a body set up in the immediate aftermath of World War II with a view to encouraging European states to work together in advancing and protecting human rights. Its greatest creation has been the European Convention on Human Rights and, of particular relevance, Article 6 which secures the right to a “public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law”.
This paper charts various developments from bodies within the structure of the Council of Europe with regard to the application of ODR to the judicial system. These developments extend from research and debate on whether the impact overall on human rights and, in particular, access to justice, of ODR could be seen as a threat, and thus to be protected against, or could be seen in a more positive light and, therefore, to be encouraged. This paper charts the formation of various bodies within the Council of Europe, such as The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, The Working Group on Cyberjustice and Artificial Intelligence and, most recently, the European Cyberjustice Network on which Graham is an official observer on behalf of ICODR. The objective of the ECN is for the justice administrations throughout the 46 Member States of the Council of Europe to collaborate and share data and knowledge. This paper also notes outcomes such as the Report on the impact of ODR on Human Rights produced by the Committee of Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe and the European Ethical Guidelines on the use of AI in judicial systems produced by The Working Group on Cyberjustice and Artificial Intelligence of The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice.

Presenter:

Graham Ross, The Resolver.com

Presentation

The E-Justice ODR Scheme

ODR of the future presents a number of challenges for justice. First, the many applications used by online courts and private parties will need to understand each other and communicate with each other, on a peer-to-peer level. Moreover, decentralized online justice will require massive sharing of (anonymized) data from which to develop and implement machine learning. Such data sharing will require new public and private services and their governance. And the future decentralized online environment will also need new technology, because the current internet is based on computers understanding and communicating with each other – NOT the applications. The current browser–server architecture has lead to centralized control of most of the data, not supporting decentralization.
Therefore, new emerging technologies are vital for the future online justice.

The E-Justice ODR Scheme is DG Justice supported project which addresses the aforementioned challenges of the future transnational online justice aiming at providing, at the end of the two years project, open specifications which are necessary to (i) start developing open e-justice platforms according to variable concepts and goals of their operators; and (ii) start designing and developing online access tools for the parties which will guide the parties through various dispute resolution options (e.g. via standard disclosure protocols corresponding to the various e-justice ODR procedural options) and assist them in finding good solutions.

This presentation will examine the outputs of the E-Justice ODR Scheme study, including: an initial description of e-justice processes, subprocesses and steps and their variants up to the level of UI (user interface) elements, based on analysis of principal civil procedures in selected number of jurisdictions, at least Italy, Czech Rep., Poland, Portugal and The Netherlands; In addition to traditional judicial processes (court proceedings, mediation, arbitration and their combination), the e-justice processes include also (i) direct negotiation among the parties; and (ii) access to e-justice/ODR platforms;
an intial list of code identifiers corresponding to and identifying the procedures and steps mentioned above; an initial set of flexible data structures, data sets and process data flows for the purposes of implementing ethical data-driven processes and machine learning; and
initial rules and code identifiers for cross-domain data exchange for the future data sharing between e-justice systems and systems from other areas than justice.

Presenter:

Zbynek Loebl, PRK Partners, Czech Republic

Panel Discussion

RESOLVING AIRLINE DISPUTES WITH ONLINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION

The global airline passenger industry faces a high volume of relatively low value, high volume, customer claims which are a good fit with ODR. In Europe many of these cases are governed by EU regulation 261 of 2004 which provides for passenger compensation for delays and applies to all commercial flights in and out of any airport in the EU.
In partnership with the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) Modria’s platform has resolved many tens of thousands of these cases in the UK. In this session, a panel of leaders in the field of ODR and aviation disputes we examine the state of play of ODR in the global airline industry, processing lessons learned from the CEDR Aviation program, and laying out some possible future initiatives in this sector around the world.

Panelists:

Colin Rule, CEO of Mediate.com and Arbitrate.com, and former Director of Online Dispute Resolution at eBay and PayPal

Gary Doernhoefer, Founder & CEO of ADRNotable, former General Counsel for Orbitz and former GC of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) the global trade association for the international airline industry

Pablo Cortes, Professor of Civil Justice at the University of Leicester Law School, Fellow of the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution, and a CEDR appointed independent adjudicator/arbitrator for aviation disputes.

Ed Folsom, Captain, United Airlines

Presentation

The Universal Disclosure Protocol for Mediation (UDPM)

A great deal of attention has been paid to the resolution of disputes arising from cross-border commercial transactions, including the UNCITRAL Working Group III – ODR sessions (leading to publication of its Technical Notes), and the UN work leading to the Singapore Convention. At the conference organized at the roll-out of the Singapore Convention, the presenters presented an initial suggestion that the increased use of technology for commercial transactions across borders would lead to increased misunderstandings or misconception about the mediation process among the parties and the mediators. At that time they suggested that development of a set of standard topics for pre-mediation discussion would help address this problem. Since then, an international group of mediators (from every continent except Antarctica) has worked to suggest such a set of standard topics, under the title Universal Disclosure Protocol for Mediation (UDPM). This presentation provides background for development of the protocol and describes the latest work on the UDPM.

Presenters:

Daniel Rainey, Principal, Holistic Solutions

Ana Maria Maia Gonçalves, mediation trainer and practitioner and ODR professional.

Presentation

Bringing an ODR Platform to Life

A discussion with the founder of Immediation about:

How and why she started Immediation;

The importance of ODR to the rule of law;

The power of video and how and why and how to optimize it;

How to make an effective transition from ADR to ODR;

Dealing with psychological barriers to adoption of ODR (eg trust,
confirmation bias, the need to be together in person);

Whether asynchronous ODR can work inside and outside of courts;
Technical difficulties and pitfalls in building ODR platforms;

Strategies for commercialisation and funding of ODR.

Presenter:

Laura Keily – Barrister, Founder & CEO, Immediation

Facilitator:

Joseph Panetta – Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer, Immediation

Presentation

Volume ODR for lower value personal injury claims – a 12 year history with recent twists and turns involving both the public and private sectors of justice.

In this presentation, the chair of the Claims Portal Limited in the UK reflects on 12 years of experience in the field of online personal injury claims and on the connections between public and private sector developments and initiatives in the field – giving a coal perspective on Personal Injuries ODR.

Presenter:

Tim Wallis, Trust Mediation Limited

Presentation

The Intersection of ODR and Mental Health

Two of the hottest topics emerging from these past 2 years are Mental Health and Online Tools. This presentation will examine how the two relate to each other. ODR has the ability to support and also weaken our mental health; conversely, our mental health has the potential to support and threaten our advances in ODR. This session will allow users to walk away with tips for making sure that they are protecting both their Mental Health and dispute resolution tools.

Presenter:

Clare Fowler, VP, Mediate.com

Presentation

Emergency regime: a study of online mediation in the wake of the COVID 19 Pandemic in two Brazilian districts

This Paper aims to identify characteristics of the online mediation process, taking into account the sudden technological advancement experienced in response to the COVID pandemic. The scope of this study will be defined based on an empirical investigation of mediator performance in two districts Piracicaba/SP and Campinas/SP, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. This essay attempts to describe the main procedural and communicational changes and their consequent effects on the performance of the mediator and other participants in mediation. Our approach involves a conceptual re-reading of the basic aspects of mediation, comparing the current practice in these two regions, and analyzing the difficulties encountered. For future studies, we propose to add the accelerated communicational changes and to shed light on how the mediation works and the limitations it faces, so that, for all those involved, we can discern effective paradigms and “benchmarks.” In this newly developed model of the digital judiciary, period of analysis of the present study, the insertion of mediation as an essential instrument in the national and international legal culture of the present study was a noticeable feature. For this reason, to bring light to the implications of ODR in Brazil’s legal system, it would be necessary to include mediation as a means of implementing the principle of access to justice. Therefore, the present study is devoted to an analysis of mediators in digital bias and actors involved in conflict mediation procedures and the new forms of communication. In conclusion, our brief contribution to the forms and practices of digital communication and its innovation focuses on promoting assistance, social, cultural, and academic transformation for appropriate conflict resolution practices.

Presenter:

Fernanda Alves Curbage, Instructor in Judicial Mediation for the National Council of Justice of Brazil and Escola Paulista da Magistratura., Judicial and extrajudicial mediator, Lawyer

Presentation

Surveying the ODR Industry: Empirical insights into dispute resolution’s engagement with ODR during the pandemic

COVID-19 has required a greater integration of technology in many areas of our lives. The pandemic has also presented the greatest test case for using ODR at scale within the dispute resolution field. While there have been many anecdotal descriptions of changed preferences for ODR during the pandemic, there has been a dearth of empirical research into practitioners’ experiences. Specifically, what is the level of comfort practitioners have in incorporating greater technology-based systems into their profession? Which information and communication tools have practitioners opted to use during the pandemic? What differences are there in case type (e.g. Family Law vs Commercial Law) when engaging in ODR processes?

In this presentation, the presenter will share insights into the survey that explored the use of ODR during the pandemic. The survey has more than 400 responses across a variety of different ADR professions and across different demographics. During the presentation, ODR practitioners and scholars will gain important data-based insights into ongoing trends in the industry. Importantly, this presentation will provide a unique understanding into the extent practitioners want to continue integrating ODR processes into their practice for the future. The presentation will provide forum participants a greater understanding of whether their experiences during the pandemic overlap with trends identified in the survey, as well as greater clarity in expectations for the future use of ODR in the dispute resolution field.

Presenter:

Oladeji Tiamiyu, Clinician, Harvard Law School.

Presentation

Automation in Blockchain-based O-Arbitration: The Emergence of Novel Concepts of Justice and Procedural Fairness

Blockchain technology functions on a decentralised basis – there is no use of a trusted intermediary or central authority – and it is used in smart contracts to automate transactions, in supply chain management, trade finance and insurance for example. Dispute resolution clauses in smart contracts can prompt the parties to resolve their differences with regards to the performance of the contract. This type of dispute resolution has received widespread attention for the resolution of specific low-value claims, especially in the context of cryptocurrency and commercial smart contract-related disputes. Different projects have integrated automation in the blockchain-based dispute resolution procedure and have adopted different designs for automation in the process. The Kleros blockchain-based dispute resolution procedure, for example, has adopted automation at every stage of the procedure. Another example is the CodeLegit blockchain-based arbitration procedure that clarifies at what stages of the procedure automation can be used. Automation in the arbitration procedure design has also been adopted by the government-backed UKJT Digital Dispute Resolution Rules. This presentation queries the extent to which automation is incorporated in the design of current blockchain-based/smart contract dispute resolution systems, and how automation can be embraced in these procedures to comply with fairness and equity standards that are currently found in traditional private dispute resolution procedures, such as arbitration. The presentation explores whether the international business community is moving towards embracing a new conception of procedural fairness.

Presenter:

Dr Sara Hourani, Senior Lecturer in Law, Middlesex University London

Presentation

Towards total decentralisation through non-adjudicative methods

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) enables peer-to-peer transactions that do not require Trusted Third Parties (TTP). Commercial security is a major concern for users in this new era: intermediaries are increasingly seen as security holes and removed from protocols as a result of a growing desire to maintain control over transactions. The need for independence from TTPs has evolved into a counterculture that moves blockchainers away from central authority, the courts and the world as we know it. To date, all existing online dispute resolution (ODR) processes in DLT and related tools, such as smart contracts, do not reflect the vision of blockchain as a counterculture. They exclusively use adjudicative methods involving one or more TTPs deciding via on-chain incentivised voting systems. This research aims to present empirical evidence on why non-adjudicative methods should be preferred over adjudicative ones, demonstrating why they might be preferred by blockchainers due to concerns about risk management and distrust.

Presenter:

Giulio Ravot, mediator and researcher

Presentation

Processing of personal data in online dispute resolution procedures from the point of view of the European General Data Protection Rules

Personal Data Protection Law is in constant evolution. GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 places obligations on all institutions that work with personal data. Including out-of-court online dispute resolution procedures and providers.
In this presentation the existing correlation between the correct treatment of personal data and the confidentiality of the information in the different ODR procedures will be examined from the perspectives of GDPR, Regulation 524/2013 online consumer dispute resolution, and Directive 2013/11 on the alternative resolution of consumer disputes.

Presenter:

Rolando J Ortega Hernandez, Professor, European University of Madrid

Presentation

ODR as a Provocation to Reimagine Traditional forms of Mediation

This presentation uses ODR as a provocation to reimagine traditional forms of mediation, and to then reflect those insights back onto ODR. Notions of the “fourth party” and “fifth party” in ODR analysis, and studies of user experience of ODR, are used to identify parallel concepts in traditional mediation, before reflecting them back onto ODR. Just as traditional, face-to-face mediations must learn from ODR to take account of the objects that make them possible, so too must ODR relearn from face-to-face dispute resolution the necessity of thinking concretely about setting. This paper is informed both doctoral work in Science & Technology Studies and by practical experience of advising a US federal agency in adopting some forms of ODR.

Presenter:

Andrew B. Mamo, Northern Illinois University College of Law

Presentation

Think Like a RAT – A Framework for Innovation in Online Mediation

In this interactive session, the presenters will argue that the move of traditional dispute resolution processes online has suffered from a lack of innovation, driven initially by urgency, but also by the absence of a solid theoretical framework to guide practice. They ask whether, by trying to replicate face-to-face methods online, we are giving users the best experience? To address this issue, and to contribute to a wider conversation on innovation and change in the dispute resolution sector, they will examine a theoretical framework for understanding the role of technology in process innovation, and apply some practical lessons to online mediation. This framework had its origins in the field of education, which has encountered similar challenges in moving online. These challenges include: balancing the needs of the service provider and the users; measuring effectiveness and success and deciding what to change and what should remain the same. The session will be a practical one, leveraging some group work and audience contribution. The presenters aim to leave participants with a new framework for thinking about innovation in both their work and their learning, and feeling inspired to make changes, big or small, in their dispute resolution practice.

Presenters:

Sabine Walsh, Co Founder, Mediator Academy

Aled Davies, CEO, Mediator Academy

Presentation

ODR Adapting to Global Challenges: Using Virtual Mediation Tournaments to Teach Mediation and Advocacy Skills

For over twenty years, colleges and universities around the world have been hosting in-person mediation tournaments to teach mediation and advocacy sponsored by The International Academy of Dispute Resolution. The COVID pandemic precluded in-person activities in 2020 as it also limited in-person mediations. In this presentation, the organizers share the important lessons learned from two years of virtual tournaments, including: virtual tournaments foster team inclusivity; they increase the pool of judges; they encouraged development of enhanced tabulation of ballots; they improve transparency in addressing unconscious/implicit bias; and expand the opportunity to broaden the cultures and countries engaged in mediation and advocacy enriched all of us and expanded the platform we will use in future mediation training through the tournament format.

Presenters:

Mary Lou Frank, Ph.D.;

Kenneth K. Frank, J.D., M.S.

Presentation

Faith Leaders embracing ODR to spread compassion

This presentation will provide faith leaders insights into how faith leaders who are trained in ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) and ODR (Online Dispute Resolution) can build healthier societies to spread much-needed compassion, tolerance, and peace in communities and congregations that are dealing with conflict on a daily basis.

Presenter:

Ibrahim Hussain, MCIArb, sulhasolutions.com

Presentation

ODR in the People‘s Courts of China

A focus on the latest developments, approaches, and experiences concerning ODR in China, with reports and empirical data on what’s working, what isn’t working, and what’s coming, from around the world.

Presenter:

Michael Fang, China Computer Federation

Bonus Event

A live role-play simulation of the “Smartsettle Infinity” AI powered e-negotiation platform – a mock ceasefire negotiation in the Ukraine – Russia conflict.

The Smartsettle team will show a live simulation using their AI driven e-negotiation tool, Infinity,  in  a mock negotiation aimed at securing a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. For an overview, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v98vaGIe4CQ

Key points to understanding the characteristics of Infinity:-

This is AI, but rather than Artificial Intelligence  resolving by robot,   this is  Augmented Intelligence,  adding to the intelligence of skilled negotiators steeped in knowledge of the interests, preferences and requirements of the parties, who then feed such knowledge into the system  for decisions on acceptability by the negotiators themselves.
With that knowledge as is given to it in secret by both sides, in turn augmented by the proposals put forward by each side, Infinity itself creates packages of proposals more likely to be acceptable to  both sides.

In addition to the neutrality of the  machine generated packages, the  parties can themselves  put forward packages anonymously that masquerade as being created by the machine  thus removing bias.
The problem of negotiating issue by issue through a narrow lens  is overcome due to Infinity displaying on the one screen  not only  all the elements of proposed  packages, but also the  comparative benefits to each side of each issue. This enables the parties to quickly see and comparatively evaluate packages.
Such is the knowledge learnt by the machine that even when both sides indicate agreement on the same package, it will then identify if any value has been ‘left on the table’ and, if so, offer up an improved package to replace the first agreement only if both sides then indicate acceptance.?

This simulation is a follow up to the Brexit Agreement produced by Infinity in 2018 at the “Justice Re-imagined ”ODR conference organised by Graham Ross in Liverpool  as part of the bi-annual International Festival of Business and of which an explanatory paper is featured in a special edition of The International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution -IJODR, Issue 2, 2017 (see https://tinyurl.com/2p8mkerh )

For an example of the benefits of Smartsettle’s  Infinity and ONE to more standard disputes in legal and mediation practice see use in a typical family dispute at https://www.seeyououtofcourt.com/copy-of-home-2

More videos of Smartsettle tools can be seen on their YouTube channel. ( https://tinyurl.com/5dj4dths )

Presenters
Graham Ross &
Ernest Thiessen, Smartsettle Inc

ODR2022, the 21st International Online Dispute Resolution Forum Dublin 3-5 May 2022 PROGRAMME
Day One Tuesday 3 May 2022
12:00	Registration
13:00	Forum Opening and Welcoming Address
	Ethan Katsh, Founder NCTDR Brian Hutchinson, UCD Sutherland School of Law
13:15	Keynote Address
	Sir Colin Birss, Lord Justice of Appeal, Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Deputy Head of Civil Justice
14:00	The New ODR Framework for Ethical Dispute Resolution
	Leah Wing, Director, NCTDR Chris Draper, Managing Director, Trokt
	ODR Ethics and Standards – The Revised NCTDR and ICODR Standards
	Leah Wing, Director, NCTDR Daniel Rainey, Principal, Holistic Solutions Inc. Morenike Obi-Farinde, Founder, ODR Africa Network Alberto Elisavetsky, ODRLatinoAmerica.com Pablo Cortes, Professor, Chair of Civil Justice, University of Leicester
15:30	Coffee & Refreshments

16:00	ODR In the Courts
	Session Chair – *The Hon Mr. Justice David Barniville,* Judge of the Court of Appeal of Ireland
	Fair Hearings in the Virtual World: Challenges for advocacy, witness credibility and access to justice
	*Stephen Dowling,* CEO, Trialview
	Technology in and around the Irish Courts
	Angela Denning, Chief Executive of the Irish Courts Service
	ODR in the People’s Courts of China
	*Michael Fang, Nanchang University*
17:30	Close of Day One

19:00	Forum Dinner, The UCD University Club, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4

Day Two Wednesday 4 May 2022

9:00	The Universal Disclosure Protocol for Mediation
	Ana Maria Maia Goncalves, mediation trainer and practitioner and ODR professional. Daniel Rainey, Principal, Holistic Solutions Inc.
	The English Online Court: A Research Proposal for its Evaluation
	Pablo Cortes, Professor, Chair of Civil Justice, University of Leicester
	The E-Justice ODR Scheme
	Zbynek Loebl, Of Counsel, PRK Partners, Czech Republic Michal Matejka, Partner, PRK Partners, Czech Republic
	Co-Ordination on Cyberjustice Between the Courts of Europe
	Graham Ross, Head of International Marketing, SmartSettle Resolutions Inc
11:00	Coffee and Refreshments

11:30	Automation in Blockchain-based O-Arbitration: The Emergence of Novel Concepts of Justice and Procedural Fairness
	Sara Hourani, Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Middlesex University London
	Towards total decentralisation through non-adjudicative methods
	Giulio Ravot, mediator and researcher
	Emergency regime: a study of online mediation in the wake of the COVID 19 Pandemic in two Brazilian districts
	Fernanda Curbage, Mediator and Educator
13:00	Lunch

14:00	Surveying the ODR Industry: Empirical insights into dispute resolution’s engagement with ODR during the pandemic
	Oladeji Tiamiyu, Harvard University
	Bringing an ODR Platform to Life
	Laura Kiely, CEO, Immediation Joseph Panetta, Head of Innovation and Marketing US, Immediation
	Improving ODR’s Physical (P2D) Transition
	Chris Draper, Managing Director, Trokt Simon Boehme, COO, BillingTech

15:30	Coffee & Refreshments
16:00	Volume ODR for lower value personal injury claims
	Tim Wallis, Founder, Trust Mediation Willie Pienaar, Founder and Chief Executive, Nuvalaw
	The Intersection of ODR and Mental Health
	Clare Fowler, VP, Mediate.com
	Ethical Data Analytics and AI in ODR
	Amy Schmitz, Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Janet Martinez, Director, Martin Daniel Gould Centre for Conflict Resolution, Stanford Law School
18:00	Close of Day 2

Day Three Thursday 5 May 2022
Track A
9:00	ODR as Provocation for Innovation in Online Mediation
	Andrew Mamo, Northern Illinois University College of Law
	‘Think Like a Rat’ – A Framework for Innovation in Online Mediation
	Sabine Walsh – Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer, Mediator Academy Aled Davies – Co-Founder and CEO, Mediator Academy
	ODR Adapting to Global Challenges: Using Virtual Mediation Tournaments to Teach Mediation and Advocacy Skills
	Mary Lou Bryant Frank – Co Founder, Transforming Mediation Kenneth Frank – Brennau University

Track B
9:00	The Growth of Data Protection Regulation and Initiatives
	*Clara Hurley, Legal Researcher, The Data Protection Commission of Ireland*
	Processing of personal data in online dispute resolution procedures from the point of view of the European General Data Protection Rules
	Rolando J. Ortega Hernandez – Law Professor, European University of Madrid
	Reputation Management: Using ODR as an Integral Part of Brand Management
	Jo De Mars, President, NetNeutrals Charles McLaughlin, General Manager, Net Neutrals
11:00	Coffee & Refreshments
Track A
11:30	Faith Leaders embracing ODR to spread Compassion
	Ibrahim Hussain – Founder and President, SulhaSolutions.com

Track B
11.30	Resolving Airline Disputes with ODR
	Colin Rule – President and CEO of Mediate.com and Arbitrate.com Pablo Cortes – Professor, Chair of Civil Justice, University of Leicester Gary Doernhofer – Founder & CEO of ADRNotable, former General Counsel for Orbitz and former GC of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) the global trade association for the international airline industry Ed Folsom – Captain, United Airlines Scott Streiner – Mediator and Arbitrator, Ottowa

Tracks A & B
12:30	ODR and the InternetBar Institute’s SDG agenda for vulnerable populations
	*Rachel Svetanov, Internet Bar Institute*
12:45	Close of Forum
	Brian Hutchinson, UCD Sutherland School of Law Leah Wing, Director, NCTDR
13:00	Close of Forum


*Bonus Event* – Thursday 5 May
13.10	*A live role-play simulation of the “Smartsettle Infinity” IA powered eNegotiation platform –* a mock ceasefire negotiation in the Ukraine – Russia conflict.
	*Graham Ross, Ernest Thiessen &* Carissa Boynton, Smartsettle , iCan Systems Inc.