Yesterday I had my second Major Project meeting, this time in the presence of Dr Constantina Sampani, a lecturer in Law at Aberystwyth University and, as I understand it, the person who commissioned my project.

This meeting helped to clarify three things:

• Requirements of the project, which I’ll delve into in detail later in this post. Credit to Alexandros for typing up much of the content.
• Licensing restrictions –  I questioned whether or not the project had commercial promise, and, if so, whether or not it should be open source. A commercially viable project should probably be closed source if, as Eric S. Raymond puts it, the “value of the secret bits is more than the peer review return from going open source“. This would have implications such as not being able to use GPL-licensed libraries in my project, as my entire codebase would then come under the GPL license terms. Georgios’s preference was for an open source project, as this reduces my restrictions in terms of which libraries can be used, and argued that responsible code reuse should be actively encouraged.
• Copyright restrictions – Following on from my commercial viability question was the question of who “owns” the project. If it were to be come financially attractive, would I be able to claim the project for myself? Constantina suggested that, as a derived work from all four of us, the project would be owned by Aberystwyth University.

Requirements

Definitions

• Company Account – an authorised user (e.g. managing director) can register a company on its behalf, creating a Company Account.
• Agent – each Company has a list of Agents associated with it. An Agent might be a lawyer, representative, managing director, or legal representative.
• Mediation Centre – effectively a collection of Mediators, e.g. The Mediation Centre UK.
• Mediator – the third-party individual involved in resolving more complicated disputes later on in the process.
• Case – our term for the ‘dispute’.
• TTCTC – my own term, standing for ‘Take the Case to Court’. This can happen at many points in the online dispute process, so it is helpful to have it in our vocabulary.

Account registration

1. An authorised user can create a Company account.
2. (The Company Account could be subject to some remote checks before being verified).
3. Company accounts are associated with Agent accounts and are able to create new Agent accounts.

Starting an Online Dispute

1. Company A creates a Case on behalf of their client.
2. Company A allocates an Agent to be the legal representative of the Case.
3. The Agent (from now on referred to as Agent A) reviews the Case, writes a summary of it and submits it to the system. At this point, Agent A is the representative.
4. Agent A initiates that Case against Company B.
   • A notification email is sent to the administrative contact at Company B.
   • If the Company has not already registered, they must do so at this point.
   • Company B must now log in to continue.
5. Company B allocates Agent B to represent the Company on this particular Case.
6. Agent B reviews the Case (and is able to read Agent A’s summary) and writes their summary of the Case to accept it.
7. Agents A and B must now negotiate the Case lifespan:
   • Either Agent can make a time offer (e.g. dispute starts 1st March, 3:00pm, and ends 5th March, 3:00pm).
   • The other Agent can either accept the time offer, propose a new time offer, start the Mediation process, or TTCTC.
   • Assuming we haven’t TTCTC, this process is repeated until a time has been negotiated.
   • At any point in the dispute, either Agent can try to renegotiate the time, thereby starting this process again.
   • If the Case is not resolved within the allocated time, automatically TTCTC.

Ambiguities/Interpretations:

• These requirements imply that there should be a facility (independent of the current “state” of the Case) to renegotiate the Case lifespan (perhaps a small form in the top-right corner, etc).
• An Agent CANNOT create a Case – only the Company can.
• An Agent CANNOT assign themselves to a Case – the Company must allocate the Agent.
• There is no option to decline the online dispute and TTCTC without registering a Company account.
• There is no option for Company B to decline the case – they must allocate Agent B.
• There is no option for Agent B to decline the case – they must write a summary, and then must NOT successfully negotiate the Case lifespan. This is the quickest way to TTCTC.

Questions raised:

• What happens if Agent A attempts to renegotiate the Case lifespan (after the Case lifespan’s original lifespan negotiation)? Does the case go “on hold”, or continue until the original Case deadline if the renegotiated time is not accepted by Agent B?
• If one can start the Mediation process without having finished setting a Case lifespan, what is to stop Mediation from happening indefinitely? Does the Mediator set a default Case lifespan?
• If “Either Agent can make a time offer”, how do we handle parallelisation?
  • Agent A accesses the “Make a time offer” screen.
  • Agent B accesses the “Make a time offer” screen.
  • Agent A submits their time offer.
  • Agent B attempts to submit their time offer – what should happen?
    • Could be “Error: Agent A has sent you a time offer. Are you sure you want to continue?”
    • Could check Agent A’s offer and Agent B’s offer and if they match, automatically continue, else treat Agent B’s offer as a new offer for Agent A to consider.
• How does Company A “know” to initiate the Case against Company B, and not Company C?

The Online Dispute Resolution Process

Now that we have Companies A and B, Agents A and B and a negotiated Case time lifespan, the dispute resolution process can begin.

Agents A and B can communicate freely. At every communication step, the recipient Agent has the following options:

• Accept the sender’s offer – dispute successfully resolved.
• Send an offer back – continuing the dispute.
• Mediation offer – suggest to the other Agent that a Mediator is required.
• (As always, either Agent also has the freedom to close the Case unsuccessfully and TTCTC.)

Let’s assume that Agent A goes for the ‘Mediation offer’ option:

1. Agent B has the freedom to turn down the offer for Mediation, thereby triggering TTCTC.
2. If Agent B accepts the Mediation offer, the following process is triggered:
   • The system offers a list of available Mediation Centres. Agent B selects all Mediation Centres that they find acceptable to work with.
   • Agent A selects all Mediation Centres that they find acceptable to work with. Neither Agent knows which Mediation Centres the other selected.
   • If no Mediation Centres are selected by both Agents, the process is repeated, a maximum of two times before automatic TTCTC.
   • If multiple Mediation Centres are selected by both Agents, the list of common choices is presented to both Agents, and one must be selected.
3. With the Mediation Centre chosen, the Mediation Centre provides a list of Mediators (including their details, such as CV) to both Agents. The above process is largely repeated, but with Mediators rather than Mediation Centres.
4. Now we have a mutually chosen Mediator from a mutually chosen Mediation Centre. Whereas before, Agents A and B could communicate freely, now they must only communicate through the Mediator.
5. A confidentiality agreement is signed at this point.
   • There was a suggestion that a fourth person might be required to moderate the Mediator, to ensure that the Mediator is not passing confidential information about Agent A to Agent B.
   • There was also the suggestion of self-moderation, such that when the Case is resolved (successfully or otherwise) the full communication records between both Agents and the Mediator are made available to all.
   • Finally, there was the suggestion of technological moderation, so that messages between an Agent and the Mediator are automatically scanned for confidential information.

Ambiguities/Interpretations:

• These requirements imply that, like with the “Renegotiate Case lifespan” facility, there should be a state-independent option that allows either Agent to close the case unsuccessfully and TTCTC.

Questions raised:

• Could the confidentiality agreement be signed upon creation of the Mediator account, rather than on a Case by Case basis?
• What happens if the Mediator refuses to sign the confidentiality agreement?
• “If multiple Mediation Centres are selected by both Agents, the list of common choices is presented to both Agents, and one must be selected”. How? What is the process for both Agents to narrow down to one Mediation Centre?
• If only one Mediation Centre is selected by both Agents, is that Mediation Centre automatically chosen on behalf of the Agents?
• What happens when a Case is resolved successfully? What information needs to be made available to both Agents, and how? Is there some sort of overview/summary confirmation, e.g. “Agent A accepts Agent B’s offer of $5,000,000 damages, to be paid within 28 days.”

Mediation and Maritime Collisions

Up until now, we have a general online dispute resolution system. Not all ODS platforms have the above features, but what is being proposed so far does not push the boundaries much over what already exists. However, the Mediation stage is where the Maritime Collision business logic will be applied.

Given the case has not expired and no Agent has terminated the case, keep doing the following:

1. System offers a form or forms to Agents A and B to attach their evidence material regarding the Case.
2. All of this information is passed to the Mediator and not made available to the other Agent.
3. The Mediator reviews and evaluates the evidence material and advises parties individually using 1:1 communication. This is the stage where the maritime collision business logic can be applied. For example, the system can interpret the answers given by both Agents and play out a court simulation suggesting an outcome to the Mediator. The Mediator has the legal expertise to follow or ignore that advice, but it would be a useful second opinion.
   • A sufficiently sophisticated business logic module that passes all legal scrutiny could eventually be made available earlier on in the process, before Mediation, to suggest a resolution to the Case to both Agents. We could compare the suggestion of the “virtual Mediator” with the final resolution proposed by the physical Mediator and when these are sufficiently and consistently similar, the inclusion of the virtual Mediator as a pre-Mediation step could be considered.
4. Agents A and B take some time to consider their next step. Having considered Mediator’s advice, they can either accept the suggested offer (successful resolution) or continue the process.
5. The Mediator sends both parties an invitation for round table communication. i.e. both Agents can communicate openly in the presence of the Mediator.

Ambiguities/Interpretations:

• These requirements suggest a specific form of communications platform:
  • Pre-Mediation, Agents A and B communicate with one another freely via a private messaging system (albeit with the freedom to attach documents as evidence, etc). If this is the case, I may use an issue management system such as JIRA as inspiration for my design.
  • During Mediation, this private messaging system between Agents A and B becomes “locked” (though messages and evidence attached pre-Mediation should still be visible). Instead, an additional private message “thread” is opened between Agent A and the Mediator, and Agent B and the Mediator.
  • In addition to free (as in movement of) messaging between the Agents and the Mediator, there is a structured (i.e. not “free”) form of communication offered to each Agent via the system. This structured communication is:
    • A series of forms, generated by the maritime collisions business logic, requiring discrete answers (“15m”, “true”, etc) rather than freeform text.
    • Upon completion of the forms, the evidence collected by the system is made available to the Mediator. At this stage, the “court simulation” can be carried out, to suggest an outcome to the Mediator.

Questions raised:

• I’m not entirely sure how the above few steps can be “iterated”, as was suggested in the meeting. If we go back to step 1, does the round table communication stop and both parties deflect back to communicating via the Mediator, or does it continue into the next iteration of the loop?
• What kind of forms (in step 1) can be generated for the Agents in the second (and subsequent) iterations that couldn’t have been generated in the first?
• “Agents A and B take some time to consider their next step” – is there a time limit? How do we synchronise the answers of the two Agents?
• What happens if either of the Agents refuses round-table communication, but wishes to continue the online dispute through the Mediator? Is this not possible – would the Case automatically TTCTC?

Next steps

As you can gather, even fairly concrete requirements are open to interpretation and raise yet more questions. The steps I hope to accomplish in the next few days are:

• Clarifying the requirements further, by answering the questions raised above.
• Reading around Maritime Law – though I understand that Constantina will be providing a set of rules the business logic should follow, so makes my reading and interpretation of Maritime Law less important. That said, I’d like to read the Laws – and that also means clarifying from Constantina which set of Laws I should read and apply (my Outline Project Specification links to two versions, one simpler than the other).
• Exploring the open source online dispute resolution software solutions available, to see if I can base my project on an existing codebase. I’d like to make a decision on this before the next meeting.