The ODR Melbourne meeting has just kicked off.  Review the program for the meeting here.  About the meeting:

“The Sir Zelman Cowen Centre at Victoria University is convening the Online Dispute Resolution (ODR): The State of the Art Symposium on 21-22 November 2018 in Melbourne.

The symposium will:

• provide an intensive and experiential learning opportunity for strategic decision makers in Australia interested in ODR as a mechanism for improving efficiency and access to justice through technology
• showcase, and critically review, the variety of ODR approaches and technologies being adopted nationally and internationally
• create a network of practitioners and policy makers with a specialist interest in developing ODR in Australia.

Australian policy makers, judicial officers, court and tribunal administrators and complaint handling agencies are invited to engage with leading international experts to learn about ODR solutions being adopted nationally and across the globe.”

The conference is also hosting an ODR playground where the latest technology and platform will be available for demo and experimentation.  Speakers and bios are available here.

Portable, a user experience design firm based in Melbourne, has just put out a summary of it’s ODR design project.  From the announcement:

“As the population grows, social infrastructure such as the court system struggles with overwhelming loads, all in the face of funding cuts. To relieve some of this burden, Portable is combining best-practice user-experience design with modern technologies to help people solve more issues themselves.

Online dispute resolution represents a major opportunity. It provides an extra step at which parties can try to reach an agreement between themselves and, by doing so, is helping jurisdictions around the world prevent more matters reaching court.

Portable is passionate about improving people’s experience of justice, and our online dispute resolution technology, dubbed Settle (settletech.com.au), sits among our broader work to innovate in this space – such as our YourCase technology being piloted for applicants of family violence intervention orders, and our Courtsight ticketing and wayfinding solution implemented in Shepparton Law Courts – to transform the before, during and after-court experience for people.

The power of our online dispute resolution technology is already being seen through projects with several different jurisdictions, including family law, work disputes, and small claims tribunals such as VCAT.”

read more here.

The annual International ODR Forum Innovation and Impact: Online Courts and the Changing Landscapes of Digital Justice is being hosted by the New Zealand Centre for ICT Law, in the School of Law at Auckland University, November 14-15, 2018. The two key themes, Innovation and Impact, are well-presented in an exciting line up. See the conference program and come join the gathering in New Zealand!

“An internet-based court that runs 24/7 was set up in Beijing on Sunday where internet-related cases in the city will be tried online in the future.

Now, like convenience stores, courts will stay open perpetually and plaintiffs can file cases anytime.

The Beijing Internet Court has been given the jurisdiction to handle internet-related cases that should be tried by a primary-level people’s court in Beijing regarding disputes with online shopping, service contracts, lending and copyrights, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday.

People can “file a case online instead of going to the court with paper-based material,” Li Jingwei, deputy president of the court told the China Central Television (CCTV) on Sunday.

People involved in a lawsuit can also receive evidence material sent by the other party, Li added.

The appearance of such a court also indicates a new model of social governance system, Qin An, head of the Institute of the China Cyberspace Strategy told the Global Times on Sunday.

Citizens can log onto the litigation service platform to file cases or submit related material “at any time, without worrying  about time,” said She Guiqing, another deputy president of the Beijing Internet Court.

Cases would be heard online through videocall if conditions allowed, China News Service reported.”

Read more: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1118968.shtml

“The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) is engaging with Pew Charitable Trusts to explore and examine various Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) implementations with the end goal of making ODR, a digital space where parties can convene to work out a resolution to their dispute or case, useful and successful.

To that end, NCSC is interested in knowing whether your state/jurisdiction has started an ODR effort. If so, what case type(s) does your effort focus on and where are you in the implementation lifecycle (e.g., forming an exploratory group, looking at commercial solutions, building your own, implementing a vendor solution, or already using an ODR solution and for how long)? Are you interested and willing to have NCSC and Pew engaged in helping your ODR effort at no cost to you?

NCSC can offer technical assistance, as well as process mapping help and evaluation for a handful of efforts. Even if you have already implemented an ODR solution, we are keen to know what went well and how you are using ODR. Responses should be directed to Shelley Spacek Miller, sspacek@ncsc.org or 757-259-1538, and include follow-up contact information.”