Why train in ODR?

The first answer to that question is that there is a much bigger world out there as a marketplace  for your ADR skills and services  than those who can attend a mediation or other ADR session in person. Moreover ODR tools and skills also add value  to, and improve, in-person  mediation. Additionally, applying the fast developing online technologies to resolving disputes is taking an increasingly significant role in justice systems worldwide. So the question is better framed as ‘Why not train in ODR?”

The European Union has now passed a Regulation on ODR under which there is now an EU run website  to direct the parties in disputes related to consumer transactions to various approved ADR services operating online.

Moreover, as from the 15th February 2016  it became a legal duty on all in the EU who sell products or services online to carry a link on their websites to the EU ODR platform. This will have the effect of promoting a large increase in the use of ODR in such disputes (continue below)

As there is no value limit in the definition of ‘consumer’, this duty, to effectively help develop market awareness of ODR through the link, will apply to those selling ocean going yachts as much as to phone accessories.

In the UK in 2016, Lord Justice Briggs published his Final Report into the structure of the UK court system, which supports the proposals in the Report of the Civil Justice Council’s ODR Advisory Group (of which your lead tutor, Graham Ross, is a member and co-author of the Report) recommending the setting up of ‘HM Online Court’. The Court and Tribunals Service is already working on development of this online justice addition to the court system with the first online court pilot now in operation. Not only will such an online court make use of online technology but it will include within the court system all forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution (mediation, arbitration, adjudication etc) so that the word ‘Alternative’ then becomes redundant or, more accurately, replaced by ‘Appropriate’.

ODR is often used as a term to refer to simply using online technology as a medium for communication. As this course will highlight, ODR is far more than that (as the image below makes clear).

However, even when focusing just on online communication, mediating online is not just about using the technology but, more importantly, understanding the dynamics of online discourse and how mediators can best adapt their skills, such as by generating and maintaining trust whilst not meeting the parties, as well as by controlling the pace and atmosphere of the discussions.

Mediators who can better make use of online technology will have a marketing advantage in that they will be able to offer their services to parties in dispute who simply cannot, at proportionate cost and time, resolve their disputes in person. More than that, ODR skills add value to in-person mediations by enabling much preparatory work to be undertaken online (clarifying and narrowing the issues, beginning to brainstorm alternate solutions, ensuring the parties fully understand, and buy into, the process etc, ensuring that the mediator can ‘hit the ground running’ at the beginning of the in-person meeting so that more time can be spent productively moving forward.