Search

Court systems, government agencies, private businesses, mediators, and arbitrators are feeling tremendous pressure to provide online dispute resolution (ODR) systems because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As they rush to design and implement ODR systems, however, it is critical that everyone makes digital accessibility a priority. Because many aspects of our lives may remain online for the long term, it is important that persons with disabilities are not excluded from our “new normal” version of life. Effective access to dispute resolution processes is one part of life that must remain accessible to persons with disabilities. We cannot dismiss these features as mere details that can be added later. It is more efficient to include accessibility features when an online platform is first being designed and constructed. And more importantly, if the plan is simply to add those design features later, sometimes “later” never arrives. This chapter discusses best practices for ODR accessibility, relevant law, and organizations that can help achieve this goal.

Dispute resolution practitioners and scholars have not been the fastest group to embrace technology: in fact, as compared to other professionals, they may have been one of the slowest groups. One can only speculate as to why this has occurred.Dispute resolvers may believe that the deeply personal explorations necessary to identify the true interests integral to established alternative dispute resolution models may be unachievable online. The neutrals themselves may have entered this field because they crave the physical intimacy of eye-to-eye contact in the resolution room even more than the disputants and are reluctant to lose that opportunity. But regardless of why it has happened, the alternative dispute resolution field must recognize that a teenage (and particularly a preteen) generation is maturing that already has learned to use sophisticated nonverbal cues online. Even if you and I never feel entirely comfortable online, today’s elementary school students use the Internet as easily as we use a ballpoint pen. Those students are comfortable making the most intimate of disclosures online, have learned a myriad of textual nonverbal clues (as simple as emoticons), and will expect neutrals to be able to help them resolve disputes online. Whether we like it or not,disputes increasingly will be resolved online. What we have to decide is whether we want to be part of that migration. We only have to stop and watch our children to appreciate the cultural shift that is underway. Children are switching between cellular telephones, text messaging, e-mail, instant messaging, and Internet chat rooms seamlessly to

Will we ever see the day when the Internet serves as the primary venue for problem solving and dispute resolution? Social science research suggests that our online communication skills will improve as we learn relational behaviors based upon nonverbal cues available online. Dispute resolution and problem solving will move online, however, whether or not you and I master those skills. Our children already have developed effective online relational behaviors and can establish trust and intimacy online.