NO ONE WILL MISS LAWYERS:

Buyers and sellers on EBay use the site's automated dispute-resolution tool to settle 60 million claims every year. Now, some countries are deploying similar technology to let people negotiate divorces, landlord-tenant disputes, and other legal conflicts, without hiring lawyers or going to court.

Couples in the Netherlands can use an online platform to negotiate divorce, custody, and child-support agreements. Similar tools are being rolled out in England and Canada. British Columbia is setting up an online Civil Resolution Tribunal this summer to handle condominium disputes; it will eventually process almost all small-claims cases in the province. Until now, says Suzanne Anton, the province's minister of justice, "if you had a complaint about noise or water coming through your ceiling, you might have to go to the Supreme Court," spending years and thousands of dollars to get a ruling.

These online legal tools are similar to EBay's system, which uses algorithms to guide users through a series of questions and explanations to help them reach a settlement by themselves.

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