Online Courts and the Future of Justice Quotes

“Another common set of objections that should not detain us too long are those that exhibit what I call ‘irrational rejectionism’—the dogmatic dismissal of technologies of which the critic has no direct experience (see Chapter 3). I reiterate this here because it surely will not do, no matter how eminent the rejectionist, to dismiss the idea of online courts without seeing a few systems in action and spending some time immersed in the literature. I say this with some passion because I am assailed almost daily by articulate and forceful judges and lawyers who snub online courts without any evidence of their operation in practice nor their purpose in principle. This kind of rhetoric would be accepted neither in the courtroom nor in informed public discourse, and will not be admitted here either.”
― Richard Susskind, Online Courts and the Future of Justice

“In the context of online courts, critics should therefore be cautious about comparing online courts with some ideal and yet simply unaffordable or unattainable conventional court service. In their enthusiasm to dismiss online courts, they often forget the many shortcomings of what is currently in place. The comparison that should be made is with what we have today—court services that are too expensive, take too long, are barely intelligible to the non-lawyer, and so exclude countless potential litigants with credible claims. Our focus, in other words, should be as much on practical steps to remove injustice than defaulting to the current set-up.”
― Richard Susskind, Online Courts and the Future of Justice

“Most critics of online courts are romantic transcendentalists rather than pragmatic comparativists. When confronted with the idea of online courts, they swiftly isolate the shortcomings both of online judging and of extended courts and seek to show how they fall short of some idealized, perfect model of the court system. For long, I have observed their reactions at demonstrations of impressive new technologies. Invariably, their initial reaction is to assert, ‘well, of course, your system can’t do x, y, or z’, apparently oblivious to the fact that today’s set-up also cannot achieve x, y, or z. They choose to compare what is envisioned not with what is actually available today but with some imagined ideal system. And once they find fault, their inclination is then to reject online courts wholesale. This is transcendentalism hard at work. In response, comparativists must remind the critics that the proposed new system, overall, takes us to a better place. Transcendentalists often stand in the way of advance. In the name of justice, they miss the opportunity to reduce injustice.”
― Richard Susskind, Online Courts and the Future of Justice