Where Have All the Lawyers Gone?

Abstract

As ODR enters the court system, it is eagerly embraced by two of the justice system's traditional stakeholders: the public, and the courts. The third stakeholder, lawyers and the legal profession, has largely been absent from the table when discussions on initiating and designing court-ODR systems have taken place. In this paper, we explain the roots of this phenomenon and describe a conference session at the 2019 International Forum on ODR at which we shared them with ODR experts and court leaders. We engaged participants in a community conversation about engaging the legal profession in this justice evolution, in order to ensure its success and strengthen its justice outcomes. Together with participants, we generated a list of suggestions and best practices for engaging the legal profession constructively around these issues.