Business: Executives

Online Dispute Resolution Pioneer Colin Rule Named Mediate.com CEO

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EUGENE, Ore. (PRWEB)

Mediate.com announced today that Colin Rule has been named President and Chief Executive Officer. Jim Melamed, the company’s co-founder and CEO, will become chair of the board and general counsel.

Rule returns to Mediate.com where he served as General Manager in 1999. Rule spun his company OnlineResolution out of Mediate.com in 2000, creating one of the world’s first ODR providers. In 2003 Rule became the first director of ODR for eBay and PayPal. In 2011 he co-founded Modria.com, where he was CEO and COO. Tyler Technologies acquired Modria in 2017, and Rule became Tyler’s first vice president of Online Dispute Resolution (ODR).

“I am very excited to be re-joining Mediate.com,” said Rule. “Mediate is the most important dispute resolution website on the internet with a deep library of mediation resources and a vibrant community of mediators, so it is uniquely positioned to lead the global effort to apply technology to the task of resolving disputes. I am excited to work with the Mediate.com team to evolve the practice of mediation over the next decade and to expand access to resolutions around the world.”

As director of ODR at eBay and PayPal, Rule led a worldwide team that resolved more than 400 million cross-border disputes over seven years. At Modria, Rule led the development of the ODR platform used by the American Arbitration Association to manage its largest caseload, eventually growing the company to resolve millions of disputes in government, insurance, eCommerce, and the courts. At Tyler Technologies, Rule helped to launch court ODR systems across the United States, including counties in Georgia, Texas, California, Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, and Nevada.

“Colin is the right leader for Mediate.com,” said Jim Melamed, Mediate.com co-founder and CEO since it launched in 1996. “There is only one person on this planet that I wanted to take over the leadership of Mediate.com, and that is Colin Rule. In addition to his having become the world’s leading expert and voice for ODR, Colin is, quite simply, a prince of a person. Colin’s intelligence, passion, integrity and generosity make him the perfect choice to lead RIS and Mediate.com going forward. While Covid-19 has rather suddenly driven nearly all dispute resolution online, seemingly overnight, Mediate.com has been preparing for this moment for over 25 years. For Mediate.com to now have Colin Rule leading our way forward is a blessing both for our company and for the world.”

Rule is the author of Online Dispute Resolution for Business, published by Jossey-Bass in 2002, and The New Handshake: Online Dispute Resolution and the Future of Consumer Protection, published by the American Bar Association in 2017. He received the first Frank Sander Award for Innovation in ADR from the American Bar Association in 2020 and the Mary Parker Follett Award from the Association for Conflict Resolution in 2013.

About Resourceful Internet Solutions

Resourceful Internet Solutions, Inc. (RIS) is the leading online technology provider to the dispute resolution industry. Founded by Jim Melamed and John Helie in 1995, RIS provides proven online technologies for mediation, ombuds and online dispute resolution programs. In addition to Mediate.com, RIS hosts leading websites and professional directories, including Arbitrate.com, OnlineMediators.com, OnlineArbitrators.com, and many other dispute resolution resources. RIS also offers the dispute resolution industry’s leading case management system at CaseloadManager.com, in use by the IMF, ICANN, NASA, the International Red Cross, and several statewide dispute resolution programs. To learn more, visit http://www.resourceful.net.

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