During the AAA® Higginbotham Fellows 2026 cohort’s week-long training program in New York, Maya Markovich, vice president of strategic partnerships at the AAA-ICDR Institute™, presented a forward-looking discussion on the future of dispute resolution and the growing role of justice technology, AI, and human-centered system design in expanding access to justice. The session explored how arbitration, mediation, and technology-enabled dispute resolution are evolving to better serve self-represented parties, small businesses, and modern legal consumers.
The future of dispute resolution is already here — and it looks very different from the system most legal professionals were trained to navigate.
Across courts, tribunals, and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) forums, more parties are appearing without lawyers.
Processes are increasingly digital. Expectations are shaped by user experience rather than legal tradition. As the justice gap widens, institutions are confronting a critical question: How do we make dispute resolution more accessible, understandable, and scalable without sacrificing fairness?
The Growing Reality of Self-Represented Parties
For millions of Americans, navigating a legal process means doing so alone.
According to recent access-to-justice research, 92% of low-income Americans receive inadequate or no legal help for their civil legal issues, while most civil cases now involve at least one unrepresented party.
This shift is reshaping the daily reality of both litigation and arbitration. Whether in consumer dispute resolution, business mediation, or court-connected ADR, neutrals increasingly encounter participants unfamiliar with legal terminology, filing requirements, or procedural expectations.
The barriers are rarely limited to legal complexity alone. More often, they involve a combination of confusion, cost, intimidation, and system design gaps.
As Markovich emphasized during the presentation, fairness in dispute resolution increasingly depends not only on neutrality, but also on usability. If parties do not understand the process, they cannot meaningfully participate in it.
Why ADR Is Well Positioned to Address the Justice Gap
Compared to traditional court litigation, ADR offers greater flexibility to design systems around the actual needs of users.
Mediation services, online dispute resolution platforms, and arbitration processes can reduce procedural friction while creating more accessible pathways for people attempting to resolve disputes without counsel. ADR also frequently resolves matters faster and more efficiently than overloaded court systems.
This flexibility is becoming increasingly important as courts nationwide face growing caseloads and resource constraints. Many court systems are now turning to ADR and technology-enabled workflows to help manage high-volume cases more effectively.
One example highlighted during the session was an initiative in Lancaster County focused on improving consumer debt diversion programs through AI-enhanced case management tools.
The AI system assists with:
- Intake and data entry
- Eligibility review
- Scheduling workflows
- Order generation
- Audit trail creation
Importantly, AI does not replace human judgment. Staff remain the decision-makers throughout the process, while technology functions as operational support.
This distinction is central to the broader conversation around AI in arbitration and dispute resolution. Responsible AI implementation should improve efficiency and access while preserving transparency, accountability, and human oversight.
Designing Systems Around Real Users
Technology alone cannot solve the access-to-justice crisis. Poorly designed systems simply digitize existing frustrations.
That is why some of the most promising innovations focus less on automation and more on user-centered design.
Markovich discussed the AAA-ICDR Institute’s collaborative work with Suffolk University’s Online Dispute Resolution Innovation Clinic, where teams are building a “digital front door” for family law dispute resolution. The initiative includes guided interviews, smart forms, virtual mediation, and AI-powered user guidance designed to simplify procedural navigation for self-represented users.
The goal is not merely to move existing systems online. It is to redesign dispute resolution around how real people actually experience legal systems.
This broader movement reflects the rapid growth of justice tech — technology designed specifically to help people navigate legal problems independently.
Justice tech platforms increasingly help users:
- Understand legal procedures
- Complete filings
- Access mediation services
- Organize information
- Prepare for hearings
- Connect with legal professionals when necessary
Rather than replacing lawyers or arbitrators, these tools are changing how parties arrive at the dispute resolution process in the first place.
Fairness as a Design Principle
As self-represented participation grows, ADR professionals face an important shift in mindset. Fairness is no longer solely about neutrality in outcome. It also requires making sure parties can effectively participate in the process itself.
During the presentation, Markovich outlined several fairness-focused principles shaping modern dispute resolution design:
- Plain language communication
- Transparency around process and expectations
- Predictable procedural structure
- Reduced friction around deadlines and technology
- Human-centered design approaches
These principles do not fundamentally change the role of the arbitrator or mediator in ADR. Instead, they make fairness more explicit, consistent, and scalable throughout the process.
This evolution is particularly important as self-represented parties become the norm rather than the exception in many legal environments.
The Expanding Role of the Modern Arbitrator
As technology reshapes dispute resolution, the role of the arbitrator is evolving as well.
Today’s neutrals increasingly serve not only as decision-makers, but also as process architects, translators of procedural complexity, and facilitators of user understanding.
This does not diminish the importance of legal expertise. Rather, it elevates the importance of communication, accessibility, and thoughtful process management.
The core tensions remain real:
- Efficiency versus fairness
- Automation versus human judgment
- Innovation versus accountability
But these tensions are not problems to eliminate. They are realities to navigate responsibly.
The justice system is being rebuilt in real time through a combination of ADR, technology, and institutional innovation. The goal is not simply to resolve disputes faster. It is to make sure that people — including those navigating the system alone — leave the process believing resolution was understandable, fair, and genuinely possible.