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in light of the younger generation's famil- iarity with online transactions, whether it be paying credit card bills or buying a new pair of shoes. The ministry is in talks with a number of service providers and believes tech- nology similar to that used by eBay will translate to court services. It hopes to have the pilot project up and running sometime this year or next. Long-term adoption of ODR will depend on client satisfaction, savings to the public trea- sury, and settlement rates demonstrated by the pilot project, says the ministry. Others within Canada's legal industry are using the web to facilitate what might be called hybrid-style ODR systems. Colm Brannigan is a Brampton, Ont., mediator and arbitrator who wrote his LLM thesis at Osgoode Hall Law School in the late 1990s on ODR. He hopes to transform his mediate.ca web site into the home of a secure chat room where he would mediate commercial law, fam- ily law, and estates law disputes between individuals via webcam. He is in talks with a U.S. company to provide the tech- nology to make that dream happen. He hopes to have the system online some- time this year. Allan Stitt, the Toronto-based presi- dent of ADR Chambers and the Stitt Feld Handy Group, has long been a proponent of Internet-based dispute resolution. The past president of the ADR Institute of Canada Inc. has helped ADR Chambers develop its eVideo mediation system that was rolled out this year. For $250 per user, it allows parties to participate in a traditional mediation using the Internet and telephone to conference remotely. It also allows parties to share secure docu- ments and meet in a private, online meet- ing room after talks break. Stitt has previously been linked with efforts to bring a system similar to CyberSettle to Canada, but says he is not currently involved in any such efforts. Yet he is convinced Canadians looking for a quick, cheap, and Internet-based tool to resolve their minor disputes will soon have plenty of options. "I would predict that if we have this discussion a year from now, this will be a very differ- ent discussion, and I think a lot of people will have come up with a lot of new ODR Untitled-2 1 initiatives that will be really interesting and that the market will think are great," he says. Time will tell if this second genera- tion of ODR initiatives gains traction in Canada. There remains a large contin- gent of naysayers who believe the Internet is too impersonal a forum to resolve disputes, and hasten to point out that private settlements on sites like CyberSettle are unenforceable. But if the words of late U.S. Supreme Court chief justice Warren Burger hold true, ODR could well usher in a new era of dispute resolution. Said Burger: "The notion that most people want black-robed judg- es, well-dressed lawyers, and fine-pan- elled courtrooms as the setting to resolve their dispute is not correct. People with problems, like people with pains, want relief, and they want it as quickly and as inexpensively as possible." Paul M. Iacono, Q.C. Hon. Harvey Spiegel, Q.C. Helen L. Walt Charles A. Harnick, Q.C. Douglas F. Cutbush Margaret K. Rees Tony Baker Barry S. Arbus, Q.C. Richard D. McLean, Q.C. Jeffrey Musson Cindy Winer Eric R. Rumack, M.D. To arrange a mediation, arbitration, appraisal or neutral evaluation please call our ADR Coordinator. (416) 866-2400 130 Adelaide Street West, Suite 701, Toronto, Ontario M5H 2K4 Fax: (416) 866-2403 | Web: www.yorkstreet.ca www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com SEPTEMBER 2010 41 8/3/10 11:21:20 AM