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<xTITLE>Mediate.com Announces Launch of New Online Dispute Resolution Platform: ODR.com</xTITLE>

Mediate.com Announces Launch of New Online Dispute Resolution Platform: ODR.com

by Colin Rule, Jim Melamed, Clare Fowler
 May 2022

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From Mediate.com

Release Date: May 3, 2022

Mediate.com Announces the Public Launch of its New Online Dispute Resolution Platform: ODR.com

This new platform combines
CaseloadManager.com and CREKODR.com
creating the most powerful ODR system in the world!

EUGENE, OR, May 3, 2022—Mediate.com, the #1 dispute resolution website on the internet for more than 25 years, announced today that its new Online Dispute Resolution platform, ODR.com, is now available to the public. 

The new ODR.com platform combines the robust case management features of Mediate.com’s CaseloadManager.com (the leading case management system for dispute resolution organizations, refined over 12 years with 150+ customers) with the advanced ODR functionality of CREKODR.com (the dispute resolution workspace tool designed by Chittu Nagarajan, the leading ODR pioneer in India).

This unified platform for ODR, built from the ground up over the past two years, is now positioned to lead the expanding global market for online dispute resolution, estimated to reach $500m within the next five years.

The ODR.com platform offers four unified components: a configurable intake and problem diagnosis wizard, an enterprise-class case management system, online meetings with customizable dispute workflows, and real-time business intelligence and data dashboards.

This new system will make resolving disputes over the internet more efficient, more effective, and help to expand access to justice for users around the world.

“The public launch of ODR.com is a watershed event in the field of online dispute resolution,” said Colin Rule, CEO of Mediate.com. “We have built this new system from the ground up to be the most flexible, configurable, and secure platform for resolving online problems the world has ever seen. I am very proud of the work our teams have done over the last two years to bring this system to the public, and I am confident that our new system will raise the bar for state of the art online dispute resolution.”

The ODR.com platform was jointly designed and built by expert teams in the United States and India. It has undergone extensive security and penetration testing from outside auditors, and it has been designed from inception to comply with all professional standards issued by the International Council for Online Dispute Resolution (ICODR.org).

The system supports multiple languages, is completely user configurable on the fly, and offers fully documented underlying APIs that make integration with other platforms and services seamless.

“Online Dispute Resolution is growing quickly, especially in response to the COVID pandemic, which moved many courts and customer service operations entirely online,” explained Jim Melamed, co-founder and former CEO of Mediate.com. “The ODR.com platform, an enterprise-class system built to scale to millions of cases, will help dispute resolution organizations respond to evolving user demands by providing resolutions around the clock and around the world.”

The ODR.com leadership team has been at the forefront of the online dispute resolution field since its inception in the late 1990s. ODR.com’s design is the end product of that team’s decades of experience building more than 200 online dispute resolution systems that have resolved more than 1 billion disputes worldwide.

As Professor Ethan Katsh, the “father of Online Dispute Resolution,” noted: "I always check whether ODR platforms provide users with CEET (convenience, expertise, experience, and trust) and ODR.com scores highly on all of these criteria... as dispute volumes grow alongside the growth of the internet, ODR.com will lead in innovating solutions."

About the RIS Network

ODR.com is a sibling site to Mediate.com, Arbitrate.com, and Ombuds.org. These sites, all managed by Resourceful Internet Solutions (RIS), support the work of tens of thousands of dispute resolvers around the world. Founded by Jim Melamed and John Helie in 1995, RIS provides proven online technologies for mediation, arbitration, ombuds and online dispute resolution programs. In addition to Mediate.com, RIS hosts leading websites and professional directories, including Arbitrate.com, Ombuds.org, MediateUniversity.com and many other dispute resolution resources. 

Contact: Angela Letney
Resourceful Internet Solutions, Inc.
admin@mediate.com

Biography


Colin Rule is CEO of Resourceful Internet Solutions, Inc. ("RIS"), home of Mediate.com, MediateUniversity.com, Arbitrate.com, CaseloadManager.com and a number of additional leading online dispute resolution initiatives.  From 2017 to 2020, Colin was Vice President for Online Dispute Resolution at Tyler Technologies. Tyler acquired Modria.com, an ODR provider that Colin co-founded, in 2017.  Previously, from 2003 to 2011, Colin was Director of Online Dispute Resolution for eBay and PayPal.  Further, Colin co-founded Online Resolution in 1999, one of the first online dispute resolution (ODR) providers, and served as its CEO and President.  Colin also worked for several years with the National Institute for Dispute Resolution in Washington, D.C. and the Consensus Building Institute in Cambridge, MA.

Colin is the author of Online Dispute Resolution for Business, published by Jossey-Bass in September 2002, and co-author of The New Handshake: Online Dispute Resolution and the Future of Consumer Protection, published by the ABA in 2017. Colin received the first Frank Sander Award for Innovation in ADR from the American Bar Association in 2020, and the Mary Parker Follett Award from the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) in 2013. Colin holds a Master’s degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in conflict resolution and technology, a graduate certificate in dispute resolution from UMass-Boston, a B.A. from Haverford College, and Colin served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Eritrea from 1995-1997.  You can read many of Colin's articles and see some of his talks at colinrule.com/writing.

 


Jim Melamed co-founded Mediate.com in 1996 and served as CEO of Mediate.com through June 2020 (25 years).  During Jim's tenure, Mediate.com received the American Bar Association's 2010 Institutional Problem Solver Award.  Before Mediate.com, Jim founded The Mediation Center in Eugene, Oregon in 1983 and served as Executive Director of the Academy of Family Mediators (AFM) from 1987 to 1993. Jim was also the first President and Executive Director of the Oregon Mediation Association (1985-86). Jim's undergraduate degree is in psychology from Stanford University and his law degree is from the University of Oregon.

Jim has received the following awards: The Oregon Mediation Association's 2003 Award for Excellence; The Oregon State Bar's 2006 Sidney Lezak Award of Excellence; The Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) 2007 John Haynes Distinguished Mediator Award; The 2012 Academy of Professional Family Mediators (APFM) "Getting To Yes" Award; The APFM's first Outstanding Mediator Award (2018); and the Oregon Mediation Association's 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award.


Clare Fowler is Executive Vice-President and Managing Editor at Mediate.com.  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 addition to her editorial duties at Mediate.com, Clare coordinates online case management for ADR programs, agencies and courts.