The ICODR Podcast

Episode 30: Mediate.com EVP Clare Fowler on AI and the Future of ODR

In this episode of the ICODR podcast Ian speaks with Clare Fowler, Executive Vice President of Mediate.com, on the future of AI and ODR, and the new International Bar Association standards for using AI in dispute resolution.
Clare Fowler is Executive Vice-President and Managing Editor at Mediate.com, as well as a professor at the University of Oregon and a practicing workplace mediator. Clare received her Master's of Dispute Resolution from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law and her Doctorate in Organizational Leadership, focused on reducing workplace conflicts, from Pepperdine University School of Education. Clare also coordinated the career development program for The Straus Institute dispute resolution students. In 2023, Clare published Rising Above Office Conflict: The Light-Hearted Guide for the Heavy-Hearted Employee.

Episode 29: Leah Wing and Zbynek Loebl on impressions from the 2024 ODR Forum (odr2024.org)

In this episode of the ICODR podcast Ian speaks with Zbynek Loebl and Leah Wing about the 2024 ODR Forum, which took place in Prague June 5-6, 2024.
 
Zbynek is of counsel at PRK Partners in Prague. He specialises in the field of Internet law and legal aspects of ICT and technology projects. With extensive experience in internet law, convergent services, electronic communications, e-commerce, personal data protection, cyber security and intellectual property, he has been a pioneer in the field of ODR for twenty years. Zbynek is a fellow of The National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution (NCTDR). He has also participated in a number of international projects related to cross-border online dispute resolution. He is an author of a book Designing Online Courts (The Future Of Justice Is Open To All), Kluwer Law International, 2019.
 
Leah is a Professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, as well as the Director of the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution (NCTDR). Leah heads the Ethical Principles for Online Dispute Resolution initiative of NCTDR and serves on the ABA Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Standards Taskforce and the ABA Technology Committee. Leah has taught dispute resolution since 1993 and served as a researcher on early experiments in online dispute resolution. Leah is on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution and of Conflict Resolution Quarterly, served two terms on the Association of Conflict Resolution Board of Directors, and is on the advisory board of ODREurope. Leah is also the founding director of the Social Justice Mediation Institute.

Episode 28: Zbynek Loebl on decentralized, open source ODR and AI

In this episode of the ICODR podcast Ian speaks with Zbynek Loebl, of counsel at PRK Partners in Prague, and host of the upcoming ODR Forum meeting http://odr2024.org .
 
Zbynek Loebl specialises in the field of Internet law and legal aspects of ICT and technology projects. A specialist in internet law, convergent services, electronic communications, e-commerce, personal data protection, cyber security and intellectual property, he has been a pioneer in the field of ODR for twenty years.
Zbynek worked at IT Law Europe, a free association of lawyers specialised in modern technologies law from its onset; he was the only lawyer from Central Europe. For several years, he was the Czech representative to the International Technology Law Association. Zbynek is a fellow of The National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution (NCTDR). He has also participated in a number of international projects related to cross-border online dispute resolution.
He is a Panellist of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center in Geneva for the resolution of domain name disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and of the Arbitration Court Attached to the Economic Chamber of the Czech Republic and Agricultural Chamber of the Czech Republic both for disputes related to .eu domain names and in standard arbitration proceedings.
Zbynek is an author of a book Designing Online Courts (The Future Of Justice Is Open To All), Kluwer Law International, 2019.

Episode 27: Sanjana Hattotuwa on technology, disinformation, and peace

In this episode of the ICODR podcast Ian speaks with Dr. Sanjana Hattotuwa, pioneer in ICT for peacebuilding and citizen journalism.
 
Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa has recently returned to Sri Lanka after a several years in New Zealand where he completed his doctorate at Otago University with a thesis on "Liking hate? Social media, politics, and conflict in Sri Lanka." He has also been Research Director with the Disinformation Project [https://thedisinfoproject.org/]
 
Since 2001, Sanjana has been at the forefront of pioneering the integration of technology into peacebuilding initiatives. In 2007, he founded and continued to curate until June 2020, the award-winning Groundviews [https://groundviews.org/], Sri Lanka's first citizen journalism website. His expertise extends beyond Sri Lanka, and South Asia, and covers work in five continents for over two decades, working on civic media, information disorders, new media literacy, web activism, digital security, and online advocacy. 
 
Since 2006, Sanjana has been Special Adviser to the ICT for Peace Foundation [https://ict4peace.org/activities/], with a focus on providing strategic insights and guidance in the deployment of ICTs for the intricate facets of crisis early warning, prevention, management, and recovery. 
 
Between 2002 and 2020, Sanjana was Senior Researcher, Centre for Policy Alternatives [https://www.cpalanka.org/] with a focus on secure strategies for online and mobile communication. In 2002, he played a pivotal role as a lead architect in devising an online negotiation platform, and related information support systems that bolstered crucial engagements, and research surrounding the Track 1, 2, and 2.5 ceasefire agreement processes.

Episode 26: Janet Martinez, Senior Lecturer - Emeritus and retired Director of the Martin Daniel Gould Center for Conflict Resolution at Stanford Law School

In this episode Ian chats with Janet Martinez, Senior Lecturer - Emeritus and retired Director of the Martin Daniel Gould Center for Conflict Resolution at Stanford Law School. Janet taught negotiation, advanced negotiation, dispute systems design, and ADR law and policy. She practiced corporate law for ten years in San Francisco, latterly as Senior Counsel for McKesson Corporation’s acquisitions and divestitures. She was Senior Consultant for the Consensus Building Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she now serves on the board of directors.  Janet does corporate executive negotiation trainings with LaxSebenius Negotiation Group, as well as with law firms in North America and abroad. Dr. Martinez received her B.S. in Bacteriology from Washington State University, J.D. from Golden Gate University, M.P.A. from Harvard University, and Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
 
Janet has published extensively in the ODR field, with a strong focus on the design of ODR systems and, in particular, ethical ODR systems. Her work includes Dispute System Design: Preventing, Managing, and Resolving Conflict (Stanford University Press, 2020); “ODR and Innovation in the U.S.”, with Amy Schmitz, in the major text on ODR, Online Dispute Resolution: Theory and Practice. A Treatise on Technology and Dispute Resolution; and “Designing Ethical Online Dispute Systems: The Rise of the Fourth Party,” with Colin Rule. She and Amy Schmitz also have a forthcoming book, Digital Dispute System Design.
 
More on Jan:
https://law.stanford.edu/directory/janet-martinez/
https://www.cbi.org/about/bio/janet-martinez/
 

Episode 25: Matt Bartlett on the regulation of emerging technologies

In this episode of the ICODR podcast Ian speaks with Matt Bartlett, a doctoral student at Columbia Law School, where he also recently completed his LLM. His research focuses on the regulation of emerging technologies (particularly AI). He has taught technology law and policy at the University of Auckland, and writes about technology issues at Technocracy. He has also written recently on the EU AI Act and whether it can effectively provide a framework for ChatGPT and other generative AI systems.
More about Matt:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattjamesbartlett/
https://www.openglobalrights.org/matt-bartlett/
 

Episode 24: Dr. Fahimeh Abedi on law and artificial intelligence

In this episode of the ICODR podcast Ian speaks with Dr. Fahimeh Abedi, Research Fellow at the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics (CAIDE) at the University of Melbourne. With a strong research background spanning over 10 years, Fahimeh has focussed her work on exploring the intersection of law and artificial intelligence.
She holds a PhD from Victoria University, Melbourne; and an LLM from the National University of Malaysia.
Currently, Fahimeh is engaged in the Ninian Stephen Law Program: New Legal Thinking for Emerging Technologies project that focuses on addressing the complex legal and ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies specifically for lawyers in Australia. In addition, Fahimeh is a chief investigator in the development of resilient legal advice for cyber and critical technologies in Vietnam as part of a project with Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). 
She is also a chief investigator for a research project titled "Measuring and Evaluating Sustainability-SDG 5 – Gender Equality to Empower Victorian Indigenous Women's Ownership of Agricultural Land" that aims to empower indigenous women in Victoria by promoting gender equality and fostering their ownership of agricultural land.
Learn more about Fahimeh here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fahimeh-abedi-phd-44651989

Episode 23: Ben Davis, Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Toledo Law School

In this episode of the ICODR podcast Ian speaks with Ben Davis, Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Toledo Law School.
Professor Benjamin Davis joined the College of Law faculty in 2003 and retired on Jan. 31, 2021. He is a graduate of Harvard College (B.A.), Harvard Law School (J.D), and Harvard Business School (M.B.A.) where he was articles editor of the Harvard International Law Journal. Professor Davis taught in the areas of contracts, commercial law, alternative dispute resolution, arbitration, public international law, international business transactions, and 3L extended bar preparation. For his final project at the college, he hosted a dynamic virtual conversation with more than 40 experts around the world.
Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Davis was an associate professor at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law (now Texas A&M University School of Law). Between 1983 and 1986, he worked in Paris, France as a development consultant in West Africa, and as a strategic business consultant with Mars & Co in Europe. In 1986, he became the American legal counsel at the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) where he supervised directly or indirectly over 1,000 international commercial arbitration and mediation cases, made filings before courts around the world on behalf of the ICC, assisted with the drafting of arbitration laws in countries such as India and Sri Lanka, and led conferences in Eastern and Western Europe, North America, and Asia. In 1996, he was promoted to director, conference programmes and manager of the Institute of World Business Law, where he organized training sessions on international contracts, dispute resolution, project finance, and electronic commerce.
Professor Davis is the creator of fast-track international commercial arbitration and the inventor of the International Competitions for Online Dispute Resolution by which students from around the world competed in online negotiation, mediation, arbitration and litigation (2000-05). He served as former chair of the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution. He is a former board member of the Society of American Law Teachers and a former member of the ABA Council for Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Educational Pipeline (Pipeline Council) and the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security. He is also a former member and subcommittee chair for the Arbitration Competition for the ABA-Law Student Division Competitions Committee, which developed the ABA arbitration moot court.
Professor Davis led the successful effort in the American Society of International Law to pass only the 8th resolution in its history entitled the ASIL Centennial Resolution on Laws of War and Detainee Treatment. He submitted an amicus curiae in support of respondents on Nov. 26, 2019 in the U.S. Supreme Court Case GE Energy Power Conversion France SAS v. Outokumpu Stainless USA LLC. In 2018, he received the Champion of Change Award of Arbitral Women, the international NGO of women ADR practitioners.
Professor Davis has given numerous presentations and speeches around the world. He has published dozens of articles on topics related to international and domestic arbitration, online and offline dispute resolution, and international law. He is also a contributing editor at Jurist.