Ethan Katsh

Director, National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution
Professor Emeritus of Legal Studies, University of Massachusetts

Professor Katsh is currently serving as principal dispute resolution consultant for the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), a federal agency mandated to provide mediation in Freedom of Information Act disputes. He is also assisting the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in a study of disputes involving electronic medical records. During the past year he served as the 2010-2011 Fulbright Distinguished Chair in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Haifa (Israel).

Professor Katsh is a graduate of the Yale Law School and was one of the first legal scholars to recognize the impact new information technologies would have on law. He has authored three books on law and technology, Law in a Digital World (Oxford University Press, 1995) The Electronic Media and the Transformation of Law (Oxford University Press, 1989), and, with Professor Rifkin, Online Dispute Resolution: Resolving Conflicts in Cyberspace (2001). His articles have appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Legal Forum, and other law reviews and legal periodicals. His pioneering scholarly contribution in the field of law and technology has been the subject of a Review Essay in Law and Social Inquiry.

Since 1996, Professor Katsh has been involved in a series of activities related to online dispute resolution. He participated in the Virtual Magistrate project and was founder and co-director of the Online Ombuds Office. In 1997, with support from the Hewlett Foundation, he and Professor Rifkin founded the Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution at the University of Massachusetts. In 2001, he received a grant from the Markle Foundation to improve accessibility to domain name dispute rulings. The domain name dispute database was built in collaboration with the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute.

From 1997-1999, Professor Katsh mediated a variety of disputes online, involving domain name/trademark issues, other intellectual property conflicts, disputes with Internet Service Providers, and others. In the Spring of 1999, he supervised a project with the online auction site eBay, in which over 150 disputes were mediated during a two week period. During the Summer of 1999, he co-founded Disputes.org, which later worked with eResolution to become one of four providers accredited by ICANN to resolve domain name disputes.

Professor Katsh has chaired the International Forums on Online Dispute Resolution, held in Geneva in 2002 and 2003, Melbourne in 2004, Cairo in 2006, Liverpool in 2007, Hong Kong in 2007, Victoria (Canada) in 2008, Haifa, Israel in June 2009, Buenos Aires in 2010 and Chennai (India) in February 2011. The 2012 ODR Forum will be in Prague, June 27-29, 2012. He has been Visiting Professor of Law and Cyberspace at Brandeis University, is on the Board of Advisors of the Democracy Design Workshop, the legal advisory board of the InSites E-governance and Civic Engagement Project, the Board of Editors of Conflict Resolution Quarterly, and is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

From 2004 - 2010, Professor Katsh was co-Principal Investigator, with Professors Lee Osterweil and Lori Clarke and Dr. Norman Sondheimer of the UMass Department of Computer Science, of two National Science Foundation funded projecsts to model processes of online dispute resolution. This work was also coordinated with the United States National Mediation Board. Professor Katsh is currently co-principal investigator in an NSF-funded project "The Fourth Party: Improving Computer-Mediated Deliberation through Cognitive, Social and Emotional Support."

Professor Katsh received the Chancellor's Medal and gave the campus Distinguished Faculty Lecture in October 2006. Recent articles include "Technology and the Future of Dispute Systems Design" Harvard Negotiation Law Review (forthcoming) (with Orna Rabinovich-Einy) and  "Is There An App For That? Electronic Health Records (EHRs) And A New Environment Of Conflict Prevention And Resolution," 74 Law and Contemporary Problems 31 (2011).