By Bill Froehlich and Amy Schmitz, featuring Guest Professor Pietro Ortolani. (A first draft of this column was developed using Google Gemini and Claude.)
When we launched our monthly MedAItion column, our goal was simple: to bring emerging technology down to earth for the everyday mediator. But as generative AI models, predictive tools, and automated platforms spread around the world, the conversation can no longer stay local or purely theoretical.
This installment celebrates the publication of a book we believe marks a turning point for our field: The Cambridge Handbook of AI in Civil Dispute Resolution (Cambridge University Press, 2026). To mark the occasion, we sat down with Pietro Ortolani, Full Professor of Digital Conflict Resolution at Radboud University in the Netherlands, who co-edited the volume with Marco Giacalone of Vrije Universiteit Brussel and our own Amy Schmitz of The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.
In our conversation, we discussed what it takes to assemble a truly global picture of AI in civil justice, how regulatory frameworks such as the EU AI Act affect dispute resolution, and what practicing neutrals can learn from real-world implementations around the world.
Why This Book Is Groundbreaking
The Handbook is the first global, in-depth study of how artificial intelligence is transforming civil justice. Much of what has been written about AI and law focuses on a single country, a single process, or speculation about what might come next. This volume instead brings together leading scholars and practitioners to document how AI is used today in courts and in private dispute resolution, across Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Because public and private processes are examined side by side, readers can see how the same technologies play out very differently in a busy national court, an international arbitration, a mediation, or an online platform.
The book runs nearly 400 pages and opens with four forewords and an introduction by the editors. Its 22 chapters are organized into four parts:
- Part I, The State of Play (Chapters 1–5): Lays the foundation. Amy Schmitz addresses the responsible use of AI in civil dispute resolution; Janet Martinez and Grande Lum place AI within the dispute system design framework; Natali Helberger and Isabella Banks trace the shift from AI ethics to AI regulation; Talia Schwartz-Maor and Orna Rabinovich-Einy examine the legitimacy of AI legal applications; and Giampiero Lupo analyzes the framework documents that now govern generative AI in legal practice.
- Part II, AI and Public Sector Dispute Resolution (Chapters 6–13): Turns to courts and public justice systems, including U.S. AI governance after Executive Order 14110, the effects of the EU AI Act on civil justice in Europe, AI in international commercial courts, responsible use of generative AI in judicial workflows, China’s Internet Courts, the Brazilian justice system, and the Dutch VoorRecht-rechtspraak initiative for online (supported) dispute resolution.
- Part III, AI and Private Sector Dispute Resolution (Chapters 14–18): Covers the processes closest to our readers’ daily work: integrating AI in mediation (Hannes Westermann), the legal validity of AI-assisted decision-making in international commercial arbitration, AI and arbitration in Sub-Saharan Africa, AI tools for expanding access to justice, and contract performance management tools that can head off disputes before they start.
- Part IV, Lessons for the Future (Chapters 19–22): Looks ahead, with Pietro’s own chapter on AI and the public/private divide in civil dispute resolution, a chapter on “centaur arbitration” (human arbitrators working in partnership with AI), and forward-looking chapters on the future of public courts and of private dispute resolution mechanisms. The editors close with a conclusion calling for a holistic, human-centered future for AI in civil dispute resolution.
Early reviews underline the book’s significance. Karim Benyekhlef of the Cyberjustice Laboratory at the Université de Montréal calls it essential reading for anyone interested in technology in civil justice, and ODR pioneer Colin Rule predicts that tomorrow’s dispute resolvers will regard it as “an important milestone in envisioning the future of global dispute resolution.”
Moving Past Speculation: A Global, Real-World View
Too much of the public debate about AI in law swings between science-fiction promises of robot judges and alarmist fears that human judgment will be replaced. Amy, Marco, and Pietro deliberately took a different path, grounding the Handbook in empirical, real-world applications.
“AI isn’t a single futuristic wave that will hit everywhere at once,” Pietro shared during our conversation. “It’s a collection of tools already being deployed in radically different ways depending on legal tradition, regulatory culture, and public resource allocation.”
Our discussion touched on several of the concrete examples featured in the book:
- Brazil: Facing one of the heaviest caseloads of any court system in the world, the Brazilian judiciary uses predictive analytics and natural language processing to manage its dockets and streamline case triage.
- The Netherlands: The Handbook examines how generative AI can support judicial work while preserving procedural safeguards, and profiles VoorRecht-rechtspraak, a Dutch initiative that uses online (supported) dispute resolution to expand access to justice.
- China: China’s Internet Courts, specialized courts for internet-related disputes such as e-commerce claims, conduct proceedings almost entirely online and use AI to support many stages of the process.
- Beyond: Chapters on international commercial courts and on arbitration in Sub-Saharan Africa show that these questions are not confined to wealthy national court systems.
For mediators, these case studies carry an important lesson: AI is not just about drafting emails faster. It is reshaping the boundary between public and private conflict management worldwide, which is the subject of Pietro’s own chapter.
The Fourth Party and the Emerging Third Party
A central theme of both our conversation and the Handbook is the changing role of technology in negotiation and mediation. In the early days of online dispute resolution (ODR), Ethan Katsh and Janet Rifkin famously described technology as the “fourth party,” a helper working alongside the two disputants and the human neutral, who is the third party.
Today, advanced AI is blurring those lines:
- AI as the Assistant (Fourth Party): Helping human mediators organize facts, summarize position statements, generate settlement options, and bridge communication impasses during caucus.
- AI as the Neutral (Third Party): Automated, algorithm-driven evaluation in high-volume, low-value disputes, where the parties agree to accept an algorithmic outcome or where automated processes largely take the place of human facilitation.
Pietro and Amy emphasized that while automated decision-making may suit certain standardized, rules-based disputes, human mediation remains irreplaceable where relational dynamics, emotional nuance, and creative balancing of interests are paramount. Readers who want to go deeper will find Hannes Westermann’s chapter on integrating AI in mediation and the chapter on “centaur arbitration” especially useful for thinking through how humans and machines can share the work.
Governance, Ethics, and the EU AI Act
Pietro brought a valuable European perspective to our conversation, and the Handbook gives regulation sustained attention, including a full chapter on how the EU AI Act affects AI-enhanced civil justice in Europe. Under the Act, AI systems intended to help judicial authorities research and interpret facts and law, or used in a similar way in alternative dispute resolution, are classified as “high-risk” and must meet requirements for risk management, transparency, and human oversight.
American practitioners, by contrast, operate in a faster-moving, market-driven environment shaped by a patchwork of federal efforts, state regulations, and litigation, which the book also examines. Across these frameworks, several ethical imperatives stand out for dispute resolvers:
- Procedural Fairness and Transparency: Parties must know when and how AI tools are being used to synthesize their arguments or inform a neutral’s understanding of the dispute.
- Human-in-the-Loop Safeguards: AI outputs should serve as recommendations or scaffolding, never as unexamined final decisions.
- Bias and Training Data Integrity: Automated risk-assessment and prediction tools must not perpetuate historical inequities in access to civil justice.
Takeaways for Everyday Neutrals
You don’t need to read all 22 chapters and nearly 400 pages to start practicing responsible AI today (though we hope you will). Our conversation with Pietro illustrates how every mediator should consider three key principles when working with AI:
- Be Curious, but Comparative: Look beyond your own jurisdiction. How are neutrals in other sectors and countries using AI for intake, translation, or option generation?
- Maintain Human Oversight: Treat any AI-generated settlement structure or case summary as a draft that requires your professional judgment.
- Prioritize Transparency: Disclose your use of technology in your mediation agreements so all parties understand how AI assists your process.
Watch the Full Video Conversation
Catch our complete interview with Professor Pietro Ortolani on YouTube, where we dive deeper into The Cambridge Handbook of AI in Civil Dispute Resolution and the future of global digital justice:
About the Book
The Cambridge Handbook of AI in Civil Dispute Resolution, edited by Amy J. Schmitz, Marco Giacalone, and Pietro Ortolani (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Law Handbooks series, 2026; 394 pages; ISBN 9781009589116; DOI 10.1017/9781009589086), is available now in print and digital formats. It is essential reading for practitioners, scholars, policymakers, technologists, and dispute systems designers navigating the next frontier of legal technology. Learn more at Cambridge Core.
How are you seeing AI affect dispute resolution in your region or practice area? Reach out to us for a future column!
