Professor Katsh is a graduate of the Yale Law School and 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 work has been the subject of a Review Essay in Law
and Social Inquiry (Summer 2002).
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, built in collaboration with the Cornell Law School Legal
Information Institute, became publicly available in May, 2003.
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. He is also an adviser to SquareTrade.com, an Internet start-up focusing on
online ADR.
Professor Katsh chairs the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Expert
Group on ODR and coordinated the 2002 and 2003 UNECE Online Dispute Resolution
Conferences. He has been Visiting Professor of Law and Cyberspace at Brandeis University,
is on the Board of Advisors of the Democracy Design Workshop, serves on the legal
advisory board of the InSites E-governance and Civic Engagement Project. and is a Fellow
of the American Bar Foundation.
Currently, Professor Katsh is co-principal investigator with Professors Lee Osterweil and
Norman Sondheimer of the Department of Computer Science of a three year National Science
Foundation grant "Process Technology for Achieving Government Online Dispute
Resolution" to research efforts of the National Mediation Board to employ online
dispute resolution.
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