Providing Relevant Knowledge in Disputes: UMCourt Project

Parties involved in disputes often lack the information they need to take rational decisions. As a consequence, they frequently enter into agreements that are not as advantageous as they could be. Having the right information in the right time would guide parties into taking more weighted and realistic decisions. Specifically, parties should consider their best, worst and most likely outcomes in litigation as well as all the possibilities in between. In this paper the importance of this information is highlighted and domain-dependent methods for compiling it are presented. Moreover, this work describes three case studies in which these methods are being applied with the objective of informing the parties, empowering their role in the dispute resolution process and helping them achieve more satisfactory outcomes.