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From eBay to eJudge? The online auction house may have much to teach lawyers about dispute resolution, but such innovation won’t come cheap
Over 60 million cases a year are dealt with by online dispute resolution for the auction site eBay and the PayPal payment service. The Civil Justice Council (CJC) in its report, published last month (see news) believes the justice system might have something to learn from the way these businesses resolve disagreements between users. LAG agrees, but online solutions need large investments of cash and should not be foisted on the public at the expense of their legal rights. As users of the Legal Aid Agency’s misnamed, much-maligned ‘cost and case management system’ will testify, a shift to an online system does not necessarily mean greater speed or efficiency.
The CJC proposes that the government pilot a system to deal with cases of less than £25,000 in value online. The system would support early dispute resolution, using online facilitators to help bring the parties together to resolve their differences. It hopes that the online programme can help filter out the cases which can be resolved without having to go to judges to decide.
‘Even the ablest judge or mediator is only as good as the information put in front of them. Users will often need advice and guidance on what to submit.’
One of the CJC’s most eye-catching proposals is the use of online judges to decide on cases using papers, telephone calls and, eventually, video calls. This could make considerable savings in travel, court time and other costs, but might not remove the need for lawyers and advisers, as has been suggested.
Even the ablest judge or mediator is only as good as the information put in front of them. Users will often need advice and guidance on what to submit (and what to leave out), and on how the law applies to their case, and on things like changing the pleadings.
Any pilot project should be evaluated by examining the efficiency of the process, the correct application of the law, and the result obtained for the client. A system that is merely quicker and cheaper, but gets the law wrong and provides less effective remedies would be unacceptable.
Modria is the software company behind the eBay, PayPal and other online complaints systems. According to the people developing the Dutch Rechtwijzer II system, which is being designed to handle divorce cases online and should be launched later this year, the Modria software provides a stable platform for handling large numbers of cases. The new Rechtwijzer programme, when up and running, will pay a licence fee for each case to Modria. The more cases the system deals with, the lower the cost for each case, but it is anticipated that the fees will run well into six figures.
In addition to the costs of the software, there is the expense of developing the legal content. With the Rechtwijzer programme, the budget for this and the fees to Modria, LAG understands, puts a first-year price tag on the product of well over £1m. There are also the on-going costs of updating both the software and legal content. This also comes with a large price tag.
LAG believes the CJC proposals could lead to costs savings in the civil courts system, but this will require substantial upfront investment from the government. Above all, for the public to have any confidence in the new system, it has to be proved to be no worse and, hopefully, better than the current one. To achieve this LAG believes an independent evaluation of any pilot will be essential.
Online civil dispute resolution for low value claims; Online Dispute Resolution Advisory Group, February 2015.
Vicky Ling, page 16