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Software starts to solve legal disputes online

Lawyers, judges could lose jobs to computer code
Colin Rule, CEO of Modria, poses with the Modria resolution software operating on his laptop. Experts say Modria is at the forefront of the next wave of legal technology in which laws are translated into computer code that can solve potential legal battles without the need for a judge or lawyers.

SAN FRANCISCO – Imagine working out a divorce without hiring an attorney or stepping into court or disputing the tax assessment on your home completely online.

A Silicon Valley company is starting to make both possibilities a reality with software that experts say represents the next wave of technology in which the law is turned into computer code that can solve legal battles without the need for a judge or attorney.

“We’re not quite at the Google car stage in law, but there are no conceptual or technical barriers to what we’re talking about,” said Oliver Goodenough, director of the Center for Legal Innovation at Vermont Law School, referring to Google’s self-driving car.

The computer programs, at least initially, have the ability to relieve overburdened courts of small-claims cases, traffic fines and some family-law matters. But Goodenough and other experts envision a future in which even more complicated disputes are resolved online, and they say San Jose, California-based Modria has gone far in developing software to realize that.

“There is a version of the future when computers get so good that we trust them to play this role in our society, and it lets us get justice to more people because it’s cheaper and more transparent,” said Colin Rule, Modria’s co-founder.

Officials in Ohio are using Modria’s software to resolve disputes over tax assessments and keep them out of court, and a New York-based arbitration association has deployed it to settle medical claims arising from certain types of car crashes.

In the Netherlands, Modria software is being used to guide people through their divorces.

The program walks couples through more than two dozen questions, including how they want to co-parent any children they have. It suggests values for spousal support and notes areas of agreement. A second module allows them to negotiate areas of disagreement. If they reach a resolution, they can print divorce papers that are then reviewed by an attorney to make sure neither side is giving away too much before they are filed in court.

Hundreds of couples have gone through the system since it launched in February, said Larry Friedberg, Modria’s chief marketing officer.

Modria’s founders initially developed their software to help eBay and PayPal solve customer complaints about damaged goods or late deliveries without employing teams of customer service representatives. At eBay, Rule said his system was resolving 60 million disputes a year.



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