Thread by @jordan_law21

We can buy books without bookstores.
We can get music without record stores.
We can see movies without theatres.
Once, these were all unthinkable.

Can we have legal solutions without lawyers and law firms?
Can we have dispute resolution without courts?

Let's think about that.

Among the shared features of Amazon, iTunes, and Netflix are speed (get it now or soon), convenience (get it with little effort), and affordability (get it at a price I can/want to pay).

Legal and dispute solutions are invariably slow, inconvenient, and costly. How come?

Well, books, music, and movies are all mass-produced: my copy of, say, The Jungle Book (in any of those three versions) is the same as yours. My will or divorce settlement will not be. So customization slows things down.

But we've recently established that the customization process itself can be at least partially automated, sometimes even fully: see LegalZoom, A2J Author, the CRT (civilresolutionbc.ca).

Note that none of the foregoing solutions came from a law firm or a court.

What else slows us down? In the case of legal services, reliability: The solution has to work properly to have value.

Now, note that we use provider certification as a *proxy* for reliability: If a lawyer made out your will, it's presumed valid unless proven otherwise.

But provider certification need not be limited to lawyers. A super-effective automated legal services system could be certified as reliable and trustworthy -- *if* the certifying authority so desires.

Query the desire of your local certifying authority in this regard.

What slows down dispute resolution? Lawyers, sure, but only to an extent. It's the civil courts and the dispute (I don't say dispute *resolution*) ecosystems they've created that add staggering costs and complexity -- without a concomitant addition of value. That part's important

Put it this way: A trial court decision takes maybe 10 times longer and is 10 times costlier than it was a generation or two ago. But the quality of the decision is exactly the same.

Nobody goes around saying, "Judges and judgments are 10 times better now than they used to be."

Courts and their dispute ecosystems do have one feature unavailable to every DR alternative, however: enforcement. Arbitrators don't have bailiffs. Mediators can't call the police to enforce a settlement.

The enforcement authority of the state certifies the actions of the courts.

There is no obvious reason why that authority could not also be bestowed upon some other entity or system that resolves disputes faster/better/cheaper than courts do.

So. Our systems for providing legal services and resolving legal disputes are agonizingly slow, costly, and inconvenient -- and as we know, they've also proven amazingly impervious to reform and innovation.

But maybe we're going about this all wrong.

Rather than trying to "fix" law firms and "reform" courts, we could bestow certifying authority (and its attendant powers) *upon other means* of delivering legal solutions and resolving disputes.

Create more channels. Open more pathways to solutions. Give other options a shot.

I don't believe that legal services and dispute resolution *must* by nature, unavoidably, be slow, costly, and inconvenient. The current providers are, for sure. But the provider is *not the same* as the thing being provided. That's a key point, I think.

Can we have reliable and trustworthy legal solutions and dispute resolutions as fast, convenient, and affordable as Amazon, iTunes, and Netflix?

With our current legal system in crisis and on the edge of breakdown, it seems like now would be an excellent time to try finding out.