Jim Melamed: A Look at Technology’s Role in Mediation Through the Years

By Kendal Enz

Mediation expert and entrepreneur Jim Melamed has witnessed firsthand the dramatic changes technology has brought to mediation. With over 40 years of experience in the field, Melamed has been a key player in shaping the integration of technology within it. Melamed, general counsel for Resourceful Internet Solutions Inc. (RIS), acquired by the American Arbitration Association^® (AAA^®) earlier this year, began his mediation journey in 1983 when he founded The Mediation Center in Eugene, Oregon. Back then, the tools available to mediators were far more limited.

Early Days of Mediation Technology

“My first few mediations were with a typewriter. Every time the folks would want to add a paragraph to a certain page, it usually meant I needed to retype their entire agreement,” Melamed said.

In those early days, communication relied mainly on landlines and “snail mail” (the U.S. Postal Service), offering little guarantee of privacy for mediation participants. Melamed sent information about mediation by mail, so it often took three or four days for potential clients to learn what mediation involved. The rising popularity of personal computers in the late 1980s brought some improvements, such as reducing the need to retype entire mediation agreements for every edit. However, it also introduced new challenges. With no cloud storage, updating WordPerfect—the leading word processor at the time—required inserting multiple floppy disks. Parties were often frustrated when trying to open email attachments, as they didn’t always open properly. “It was not smooth as silk,” Melamed recalled. These early experiences underscored the need for more efficient tools and online processes in the mediation field.

The Move to ConflictNet

In 1987, Melamed was hired as the executive director of the national Academy of Family Mediators (AFM), which required regular communication with its 12 board members spread across the United States, Canada and Europe. “I had the experience of growing towers of pink slips, which we used to use for phone messages,” Melamed said. Returning those phone messages individually led to frustrating, disjointed conversations without any group discussion or archived records. The most advanced technology at the time was conference calls, which allowed the board to connect for just one hour each month.

Melamed’s use of technology for mediation took a significant turn in 1988 when he met John Helie at the first North American Conference on Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking in Montreal. Helie had recently founded ConflictNet, an early precursor to modern online mediation networks. The ConflictNet communication forum provided subscribers with email and bulletin board technologies for conflict resolution and mediation.

“When I saw this, I couldn’t believe it,” Melamed said. “Suddenly, I realized that I could contact multiple board members at one time, that they could respond not only to me, but also to each other, and we were also able to share and use a growing online organizational archive.”

Recognizing the potential of this new pre-internet technology, Melamed worked with Helie to introduce it to the AFM, equipping board members with modems and passwords to facilitate more efficient communication. Despite some initial resistance from board members who feared losing the human element of communication, the AFM became the first mediation organization to use ConflictNet actively.

Founding Mediate.com and RIS

In 1996, shortly after the internet became fully commercial, Melamed and Helie partnered to co-found Mediate.com and its parent company, RIS. Initially, Mediate.com sold email addresses as ConflictNet had previously done. However, RIS soon expanded its services to include website development, recognizing that mediators and mediation organizations would greatly benefit from having websites for promotion, transparency and ethical disclosure.

“We recognized that every mediator was going to need a website for transparency and disclosure purposes, with potential participants also hugely benefiting by being able to thoroughly check out if they could be comfortable with a certain mediator,” Melamed said.

While Mediate.com had a few small investors, the company survived the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 by being primarily bootstrapped, meaning it relied on its own revenue and resources rather than large external funding. Mediate.com went on to become the world’s leading mediation and dispute resolution website, with over seven million annual site visitors. A significant milestone for the platform came in 2010 when it received the American Bar Association’s Problem Solver of the Year Award.

Mediation in the Digital Age

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about another major shift in the field. With in-person meetings impossible, mediators and clients turned to online platforms like Zoom.

“It changed everything,” Melamed said.

In the past, scheduling a mediation session meant setting an appointment weeks or even months in advance. People would take time off work, drive across town, pay for parking and sit in a waiting room, for a session that might last between two and eight hours. The process had a formal atmosphere, similar to a hearing, with the professional mediator at the head of the table and the parties on either side.

“But when mediation moved online, that dynamic changed. There’s no longer a head of the table—we’re simply having a conversation,” Melamed said.

Eighty-five percent of mediations are currently held online, and professionals and consumers prefer online mediations, according to Melamed, as they offer more convenient access, flexibility and affordability.

The Human Touch and AI in Mediation

As technology evolves, it brings new challenges to the mediation process, including maintaining “the human touch.” A significant aspect of a successful mediation is the mediator’s ability to build rapport and trust.

“You’re going nowhere with the folks until they trust you. They get comfortable working with you when they’ve had the experience of being heard,” Melamed said. In today’s mediation environment, where much of the process occurs online, it can be challenging to ensure that the parties still feel understood despite the absence of in-person interactions.

Another challenge mediation currently faces is successfully integrating artificial intelligence (AI). Artificial intelligence could be highly effective in distributive cases, where the primary issue is money, and one party’s gain is the other’s loss. Melamed suggests that mediation parties often don’t feel the need to “win” but are simply unwilling to “lose.” He believes AI allows parties to develop rationales for reaching a settlement.

“You could have a robot mediation or arbitration and resolve 70, 80, even 90 percent of these distributive cases,” Melamed said. The AI could guide the parties through a series of questions, eventually leading to potential optimized financial settlements. In contrast, integrative cases involving multiple variables, such as divorce, workplace disputes or special education claims, require a more nuanced approach. These cases often involve ongoing relationships, and the focus shifts from a simple financial settlement to crafting solutions for complex, multifaceted issues.

In integrative mediation, AI still can play a valuable role by providing mediators with data and suggestions based on solutions that have worked for others in similar cases, Melamed said.

Melamed is currently focused on developing AI “wizards” or engines that can offer customized suggestions based on case types, such as divorce, special education and discrimination claims. These engines are being built using carefully curated data sets to ensure high-quality suggestions.

“What a gift to folks out there on their own, to folks going through mediation, to folks going through court, to judges,” Melamed said. With AI tools, individuals in even the most remote locations could have access to sophisticated, non-binding, facilitative advice for solving their disputes.

RIS, AAA and the Future of Mediation

Melamed believes the AAA’s acquisition of RIS and Mediate.com marks the next phase in the evolution of mediation, particularly with the increasing shift toward online and AI-assisted platforms. The partnership blends the AAA’s longstanding authority in dispute resolution with Mediate.com’s technological expertise in online mediation and dispute resolution.

By leveraging RIS’s online capabilities, the AAA now has the tools to offer mediation and arbitration services on a much larger and more affordable scale.

“Suddenly, the cost of ADR can go down dramatically, and our nimbleness in scheduling is a whole different world,” Melamed said. This flexibility and cost-efficiency are key to providing more people worldwide with access to dispute resolution. Melamed noted that the acquisition also allows the AAA to expand into new areas of mediation that have traditionally been underserved, such as family and workplace disputes.

According to Melamed, one of the biggest challenges going forward is ensuring that courts and agencies understand how to adopt new technologies.

“They don’t even know what to ask for,” Melamed said, stressing the importance of education in this area. To address this, the AAA and Mediate.com are working on creating model requests for proposals to help courts and agencies implement secure and scalable online mediation systems.

Security and confidentiality are critical issues as online mediation and dispute resolution continue to grow. Melamed emphasizes that one of the essential roles of the AAA and RIS will be to set ethical standards for handling confidential information, especially as AI becomes more involved in the process.

“When you’re providing a platform for this work to be done, none of that information should seep into the broader internet or into a larger AI machine,” he said, highlighting the need for strict controls over data privacy in the rapidly evolving online dispute resolution space.

Melamed’s career illustrates how technology has steadily transformed the field of dispute resolution. From the early days of typewriters and phone calls to the rise of online platforms and AI tools, he has adapted to and driven innovation in mediation. His approach shows that, while technology can improve efficiency, accessibility and flexibility, the core of mediation—building trust and understanding—remains essential. The continued development of AI and online platforms brings the challenge of ensuring these tools enhance, rather than replace, the human connection vital to successful mediation.