Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) is quickly gaining recognition as a means of providing greater customer service and access to justice. You will be hearing much more about it in the months and years ahead as courts adopt services that allow people to resolve their disputes online.
This article describes ODR in fairly broad terms. The National Center for State Courts defines ODR as “a digital space where parties can convene to work out a resolution to their dispute or case.” With people conducting so much of their business online, ranging from banking to grocery shopping, and ride-sharing to home stays, the purpose of ODR is to provide an online forum for people to resolve relatively common disputes.
There appears to be growing consensus that the online forum should provide parties with the means to:
- Enter information about their dispute and the status of their court case.
- Directly e-mail offers, counter-offers, and explanations to each other with or without the help of a mediator.
- Upload and download documents and photos.
- Make, edit, accept, and digitally sign settlement proposals.
- Generate any necessary forms for filing with the court.
A number of goals are associated with offering parties ODR:
- Reducing the time and cost of resolving a conflict.
- Increasing access to justice by providing an easy means of resolving a conflict that a person might otherwise not file in court.
- Adding convenience to parties and justice system constituents. People would not need to take time off work, arrange babysitters, drive, park, etc., to attend a court hearing. Instead, they could negotiate online anytime, day or night.
- Permitting court staff to work on more complex tasks when cases are resolved online.
- Providing parties with an alternative to the adversarial process.
A precursor to ODR in Michigan has actually been available in some district courts for several years: the implementation of online plea bargaining of traffic citations and minor misdemeanors. In more than 20 jurisdictions, persons receiving traffic citations are able to log into the system to see if their citation is eligible for negotiation and if so, propose a reduction in fines or points in exchange for admitting the offense. In these cases, the prosecutor or city attorney, a law enforcement representative, and the judge or magistrate all review the offender’s driving record and, as occurs on a typical in-court hearing day, determine whether to agree to a plea bargain. One court reports that the amount of time spent per case has declined from 157 minutes to 27 minutes, and the average case disposition time has declined from an average of 66 days to 17 days.
Another court sends notices to delinquent parties in child support cases notifying them that either a bench warrant is about to issue, or has been issued. This court reports that the electronic notices have resulted in a 27 percent decrease in show cause hearings and 36 percent fewer bench warrants being issued per month.
While not technically considered as “ODR,” these are both examples of courts increasingly putting routine court functions online.
In the next edition of “Connections,” Online Dispute Resolution: Part 2 will focus on a pilot project by the SCAO to make ODR available in small claims, landlord/tenant, and neighborhood disputes using the network of 18 Community Dispute Resolution Program centers across the state.
For additional information about ODR, contact:
Doug Van Epps
Director, Office of Dispute Resolution
Telephone: 517-373-4840
E-mail: vaneppsd@courts.mi.gov
Mr. Van Epps coordinated the Michigan Supreme Court Task Force on Dispute Resolution that led to the creation of a series of dispute resolution court rules. Currently, Mr. Van Epps oversees implementation of those rules and initiatives to integrate alternative dispute resolution processes into trial court caseflow management practices.
He is a member of the State Bar of Michigan, its ADR Section, and numerous national ADR associations, and routinely authors articles and presents on ADR topics at law schools and conferences.