Review of Online Courts and the Future of Justice by Richard Susskind (Oxford University Press, 2019)

Richard Susskind’s most recent book sets forth a vision for the future role of online courts in resolving civil disputes and why they will have a profound effect on the manner in which processing of disagreements and claims under law is likely to occur. The benefits will compound as the traditional processes that comprise the oftentimes cumbersome, time-intensive and costly framework of conventional courts give way to more efficient, direct, convenient, and affordable online solutions. Susskind’s years of advocacy for automated solutions in court system operations and functions are manifest in how he judiciously analyzes and responds to the myriad objections to his vision. He alerts his readers to the perils of overlooking the human elements of dispute resolution, highlighting the challenges to online developers and the risks they pose for the dispute resolution field. He argues persuasively that because more than half of the world’s population lacks meaningful access to the rule of law and administration of justice, our challenge is to leverage the potential of technology and the Internet to broaden that access by creating and deploying functional online courts worldwide.