Slides for lecture 6 of the course Introduction to Legal Technology at the University of Turku Law School, presented Feb 10 2015. This lecture is the second of three lectures on specific legal technology applications: case management, online dispute resolution, and access to justice.

1. TLS0070 Introduction to
Legal Technology
Lecture 6 Applications II
Case management, online dispute
resolution, access to justice
University of Turku Law School 2015-02-17
Anna Ronkainen @ronkaine
anna.ronkainen@onomatics.com

2. Case and practice
management

3. Case and practice management
- using technology to automate common
routines in legal practice
- dedicated tools for specific tasks as well as
comprehensive suites of tools for all the
most common tasks

4. Task-specific tools: timekeeping apps
- dozens of these, e.g. iTimeKeep
- often cloud services working across many
platforms (desktop, mobile, tablet)

5. Task-specific tools: Trademark and
patent portfolio management
- maintain records of one’s IP portfolio
- track office actions during filing
- track renewals and payments
- track oppositions and other proceedings
- manage representatives
- track workflow internally and externally
- providers e.g. Patricia, WebTMs, Patrafee

6. Example: Clio
- comprehensive practice management,
including
- timekeeping and billing
- calendars and deadlines
- collaboration, workflow, task management
- reporting

7. Another example: LegalTrek
- timekeeping
- expense tracking
- billing
- financial reporting
- client management and communications
- case management
- document management
- calendaring
- contact management

9. Online dispute resolution
and access to justice

10. Alternative dispute resolution
- negotiation
- mediation (and conciliation)
- collaborative law
- arbitration
- small claims courts
- prevention!

11. Current ADR focus
- dispute resolution most important
- dispute containment next
- dispute avoidance emphasized the least
... when the priorities should be just the other
way around!

12. Online dispute resolution
- alternative dispute resolution + tech
- minimal level: keep existing procedures, add
teh internets (e-mail, videoconferencing)
- better: rethink the entire process

13. Access to justice
- reality: more people have access to the
internet than effective access to justice
- technology could potentially change that (at
least in theory)
- ...
- most technology-based initiatives have failed
so far (Reiling 2009)

14. Desiderata for access to justice
- affordable
- accessible
- intelligible
- appropriate
- speedy
- consistent
- trustworthy
- focused
- avoidable
- proportionate
- fair
- robust
- final
(Susskind 2015 report)

15. Tech in access to justice
- information and advice: do I have a case, is
it worth pursuing?
- communications
- process standardization
- reaches a broader population
- savings in time and money

16. Example: ICANN Uniform Domain Name
Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)
- for resolving disputes related to gTLD
registrations (e.g. wrt use of trademarks in
domain names)
- legally: mandatory arbitration (not always
binding)
- half a dozen arbitration providers
- factors considered: similarity to trademark,
rights or legitimate interests to domain
name, presence of bad faith

17. Example: Assisted negotiation: Modria
- spin-off from ODR departments of eBay and
PayPal
- cloud-based platform for building ODR
services

18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4XtV2Pr5qM

19. Modria platform features
- modules: diagnosis, negotiation, mediation,
arbitration
- features
- filing
- communication
- case management
- decisions and appeals
- integration
- security

20. So, yesterday, this happened:

21. ODR proposal for England and Wales
- proposes a new HM Online Court (HMOC)
for small-claims cases (<£25k)
- three-tier service:
- avoidance: online evaluation: informational
- containment: online facilitation: inquisitorial
- resolution: online judges: adversarial
- http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/reviews/online-dispute-resolution/

22. HMOC tier 1: Online evaluation
- informational and diagnostic services made
available at no cost, fully automated
- tools proposed to be developed by non-
profits or by law firms as pro bono work
- offering advice to those who think they
might have a case
- alternative courses of action
- emphasis on prevention

23. HMOC tier 2: Online facilitation
- when online evaluation doesn’t resolve the
issue
- experienced people working as facilitators,
reviewing documents and statements from
the parties
- mediation, advice, encouragement to
negotiate
- non-binding
- a court fee is payable (less than for tier 3)

24. HMOC tier 3: Online judges
- using judges from the normal court system
- decide cases (or parts of them) using mostly
documents submitted online
- teleconferencing option when necessary
- binding and enforceable decisions
- court fee (higher than tier 2, less than
normal current court fees)
- built mostly(?) for pro se litigants: biggest
savings for the parties from lawyers’ fees

25. HMOC: Just a pipe dream?
- not quite: something very similar to the
proposed HMOC system will start operating
in British Columbia this summer: Civil
Resolution Tribunal

27. Questions?