Legal tech: Creating a workflow for adjudicators
Background
Resolver is a free issue resolution platform that connects consumers with organisations that are difficult to find online and provides them with contact details and gives them advice on how to get the most out of their complaint.
Resolver also offers a SaaS product which is created for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) providers (Ombudsman, regulators) to solve cases online. The need to move this process from in person to online emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic but soon ombudsmen started to realise that it’s a more quick, efficient and cost effective way to resolve cases. This is now known as Online Dispute Resolution (ODR).
Before I started working on the this project two of the main stages of ODR - Negotiation (two parties negotiation an outcome of a dispute) and Mediation (two parties + a mediator deciding on the outcome of a dispute) were already in place.
However, most ADR providers have another way of solving disputes called Adjudication (or Arbitration) which requires for an adjudicator to review the evidence and decide on an outcome based on set of regulations. The lack of this feature meant that the software was not able to fulfil all of the requirements for the target audience. This was highlighted multiple times in user interviews and calls with potential clients.
Research
To understand the needs and the requirements for this stage and how they currently solve cases, I conducted user interviews with adjudicators from different alternative dispute resolution providers. That helped me understand the different approaches that adjudicators take to resolve disputes and what features they require from a platform in order to do so.
I identified the key requirements and pain points for effective adjudication feature on the platform. These included:
1. File organisation: disputant often attach documents without specifying what is in it, for example a file named “IMG123” could be a picture of a passport, or a scan for a specific document. The ability to organise these documents was crucial for adjudicators who sometimes had cases with over 100 files.
2. Flexibility: ombudsmen have specific requirements depending if they are within a regulated or unregulated sector and adjudicators have specific writing requirements so writing the decision should be highly customisable
3. Collaboration with disputants:
After the adjudicator has written their decision, they want to share it with disputants with ease
Disputants should be able to respond to the decision and provide feedback - this was currently done with emailing pdf documents back and forth between parties
4. Ability to export the entire case outside of the system, including messages, attachments and the final written decision in pdf format - this is required for the times where a disputant is not happy with the adjudicator’s decision and want do pursue the case further in court
Solution
With these requirements and pain points mind, we developed a solution that provides a solid yet flexible framework for adjudicators to resolve disputes on the platform. These included the ability:
1. File organisation
Filter that helped the user find the file they heed
Labels that helped adjudicators mark the files by what’s inside instead of the file name
File preview so the user doesn’t need to download the file to their device every time they need to double check something
2. Decision writing
A rich text editor to allow flexibility in writing
Ability to save their drafts
Ability to create their own templates that can be reused
3. Collaboration with disputants
The adjudicator can send a provisional or final decision (depending on the requirements by the ombudsman) to the disputants
Disputants can review the decision, accept it or challenge it if they don’t agree to it
A decision that is accepted by both parties is considered resolved
Any decisions that are challenged can be rewritten and shared again with he disputants
4. Exporting
Created a feature where the entire case can be downloaded including previous correspondence and files can be packed and downloaded as a ZIP file
Testing
To test the solution, I conducted user testing sessions with a group of adjudicators from different alternative dispute resolution providers. The adjudicators were given access to a prototype and were asked to resolve a mock dispute using the platform's new adjudication feature.