Private online ADR could be the future, and relieve pressure on courts, says Jeremy Barnett




The failure by government to invest in infrastructure for both civil and criminal justice has been often noted. But the emergence of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and the growth of Internet-based commerce suggest this might not be crucial.



The provision of courts is expensive. The debate addresses issues such as: should litigants pay a market price? Who should foot the bill for the investment in capital? Why should it be the government? After all, in the medical sector, the government provides a comprehensive service, but the private sector steps in with hospitals and nursing homes.



There is a clear need for private sector intervention in both criminal and civil justice. This can be done cheaply by harnessing emerging technology - artificial intelligence, the semantic web and grid computing - to build a service that can bought as a commodity.



The lack of research funding into computing advances for law is due to lack of support from a fragmented market. At last, however, there are the signs of major practices beginning to work together, such as the Litigation Support Technology Group and Leeds Legal, an initiative to promote Leeds as a centre for international legal work.



The first example of a profession, universities and the market coming together in the legal sector is the LegalGrid Online (LGO) pilot at the new Leeds Club, which hopes to become the first privatised virtual dispute resolution centre.



After years of chronic under-investment during the 1990s, there was much excitement about the role of emerging technology in court. At an event in 1999, the then Lord Chancellor's Department minister Geoff Hoon promised an integrated information system to link the criminal justice agencies. In 2003, Lord Justice Auld called for a single electronic case file that could be used in court by judge and jury, as well as the use of computerised 3D graphics and animations.



The working group CJIT was then established, with a £1.1 billion budget, to build an exchange between all the criminal justice stakeholders. Electronic presentation of evidence courtrooms appeared, and were slowly mothballed.



Lord Justice Henry Brooke, who served as judge in charge of modernisation, spoke with enthusiasm about the plans for the future. But his time in the post was not a happy one - upon his departure, he attacked the failure of the Treasury to support IT for civil justice, saying that civil justice had been subsidised for years by non-contentious probate work, which has now been stopped.



But let us not be too critical. Because of the failure to achieve a consensus in the criminal and civil justice market-places, the result has been no significant spend. In medicine, there has been a £25 billion spend. Some say that has been wasted.



Online dispute resolution



The growth of ADR is well documented. It is seen as the answer to problems that the government faces in this area - note the recent announcement about the need for more mediation in family work.



More importantly, ADR has all the ingredients necessary for long-term structural change in the global legal system. It is cheap, quick, effective and trusted. That is why sophisticated services are emerging around the world, such as the Court of Arbitration in Sport and the World Intellectual Property Organisation's arbitration and mediation centre. Add to those components emerging IT advances and you have a combination that to use a dotcom era expression changes the paradigm.



The hot topic in ADR at the moment is online dispute resolution, where people mediate their disputes over the Internet. Squaretrade.com is now doing one million cases a year. These are low-value disputes but are often about customer feedback, which is of critical importance to online vendors.



The challenge is to put on multi-party complex hearings or meetings by parties in remote locations around the globe. These hearings are document-heavy, often requiring access to data stored on various mainframe computer systems. They generate global travel and are inflexible, as hearings cannot be arranged at short notice. The answer is to use the computing for virtual organisations, rather than building monolithic computer systems.



LGO: the end of the beginning?



Following interest from the Bar Council, the settlement of UK-China disputes by ADR has been the subject of conferences in Leeds and Shanghai. As trade develops, the capability to resolve disputes is needed to resolve issues from both inward and outward investment.



Under the banner of LGO, significant organisations in Leeds have come together to build a legal and financial relationship with Hangzhou, the capital of Zheijang province, close to Shanghai.



LGO has announced the opening of the 'Leeds Legal Hub' to breathe life into the old Leeds Club, which is being restored as an international business centre. Other studios are planned in Mumbai, Williamsburg and New York. Participants can join in from their offices, homes and cars by mobile phone based on ground-breaking inSORS technology, which is a form of multi-party video conferencing. Perhaps Sir Henry Brooke, in his new guise as a mediator, will one day preside in our new facility as solicitors ask their clients: 'Would you rather go private, sir?'



Jeremy Barnett is a barrister at St Pauls Chambers. He is visiting professor of law informatics at Leeds University and vice-chairman of the Bar Council IT panel