Judge.me - A Private Small Claims Internet Court

http://www.judge.me/

by TelmoMenezes • 14 years ago

230 120 14 years ago

joshmlewis• 14 years ago

I think this is a great idea. Sounds really solid and thought out. The design isn't exactly amazing, but it's ok. I'd suggest hiring a designer (or me) for a little cash to help straighten a few things out.

thehodge• 14 years ago

Also I'm not sure I'd trust a legally binding service to a .me domain..

tptacek15• 14 years ago

Just so you know ahead of time: no company you do business with that has actual counsel is going to accept an arbitration clause affirming an agreement to use "judge.me" as its arbitrator.

Still, potentially useful for ad hoc arrangements between smaller firms.

TelmoMenezes2• 14 years ago

Sure, nor will they accept bitcoins as payement. Now. That's just the status of all ideas when they are born.

tptacek15• 14 years ago

You know, you're right. I was imprecise. Let me restate:

Just so you know ahead of time: no company you do business with that has actual counsel is going to accept an arbitration clause affirming an agreement to use any specific arbitrator you've chosen; in all likelihood, most real companies will flatly refuse mandatory binding arbitration.

ramanujan• 14 years ago

All they need to do is get a few Cravath people and Stanford Law School profs and grads on their about page. Then it's "judge.me, built by alumni of Cravath and Stanford Law School. A Silicon Valley approach to reducing out of control legal costs."

Another alternative would be to work with an up and coming Valley law firm ultimately gunning for WSGR's business, but willing to start by automating arbitration.

This reputation transfer trick is the key way to bootstrap a new enterprise that needs to establish itself. Get a few of the most farsighted members of the old guard to invest, endorse, join, publicize. That is why Coursera and Udacity are so much more likely to succed than the University of Phoenix: because they have Stanford faculty who defected. All they need are a few defectors.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

My arbitrators include well known and very experienced libertarian legal scholars - I list some of them below in this thread. Obviously I would welcome Stanford Law faculty to apply as well.

jonny_eh• 14 years ago

I love how they take Bitcoin.

The video was nice, it explained why I would want to use the service, but it didn't explain how it works. Who's doing the judging? How is fairness ensured? How long does it take to get a judgement?

tptacek15• 14 years ago

One of an effectively anonymous panel of arbitrators certified by the "Chartered Institute of Arbitrators" (a UK group). It isn't clear what level of certification is required (CIArb has several levels), or, for that matter, what the CIArb's own requirements for obtaining any of their certificates are.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

The next version of my site will include public arbitrator profiles.

Some of my arbitrators:

1. Stephan Kinsella, former Duane Morris partner, www.stephankinsella.com

2. Patrick Tinsley, co-editor with Mr. Kinsella of The Digest of the Commercial Laws of the World

3. Jacob Huebert, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur in Columbus, Ohio + author 'Libertarianism Today'

amccloud• 14 years ago

Design appears to be inspired by stripe.com

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

That is correct.

gee_totes• 14 years ago

2 Interesting things:

From the arbitration agreement:

Services performed by Judge.me are governed by the laws of the State of Hong Kong. Purchasing the services of Judge.me or any reliance on any condition, representation, warranty or implied warranty (none of which are stated and all being expressly disclaimed) signifies an agreement to submit to the personal and subject matter jurisdiction of the courts situated in Hong Kong. Participants waive any and all rights to challenge venue or to remove the action to any other court.

Hong Kong?

Also, what happens if judge.me goes out of business? How will parties who enter into a contract with the judge.me arbitration clause resolve conflicts?

tptacek15• 14 years ago

By selecting a different arbitrator. Look up sample arbitration clauses; most do not specify specific arbitrators.

law3• 14 years ago

Because the ones that don't specify something else, like an accrediting agency.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

Hong Kong is where my main arbitration partner lives.

The seat of arbitration only matters if you want to challenge the judge.me award.

melvinmt• 14 years ago

I would strongly suggest to change the seat of arbitration to either New York or London if you want to convince companies to trust this service. Both places are preferred by companies worldwide to settle international disputes.

guan2• 14 years ago

Is there such a thing as a State of Hong Kong?

waiwai933• 14 years ago

Technically, it's a Special Administrative Region of the PRC, and not a sovereign state, but I don't know if can be legally referred to as a "State".

hollerith• 14 years ago

Does it matter? Hong Kong has a judicial system with a long track record.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

I am the founder of judge.me - thanks for discussing my service here and I will respond to some of the concerns posted here.

By the way, I am planning to apply to the next batch of Ycombinator.

AlexHamilton• 14 years ago

This is a great concept and looks like a classic disruptive innovation play. With the kinds of (large) contracts that I help with, it won't be an option yet, but I look forward to seeing something like this becoming a far more compelling option than the current arbitration offerings.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

It is exactly as you describe, we start with targeting the underserved low-end market and will work our way up from there. Hope to become a compelling service for your needs soon.

MichaelApproved2• 14 years ago

Great idea for a service but the real issue isn't if I'm right and should win, it's how do I collect when I win?

Edit: this doesn't seem like a better solution than escrow or milestone payments.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

http://www.judge.me/online_arbitration#enforcement

spindritf• 14 years ago

Founder did an AMA on reddit some time ago http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/t7eil/i_...

orblivion2• 14 years ago

I see, so this isn't just an idea that applies to anarcho-capitalists, it's made by one.

Mizza• 14 years ago

That's funny, I actually stumbled upon this recently.

Interesting concept, would be cool if it caught on! Suffers from a chicken-egg problem, though.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

We only did 3 cases last month, so yes I agree with you. The arbitrator side is going great, we just need more case load.

tptacek15• 14 years ago

Do you have a "model case" that you think fits in your sweet spot?

Have you thought about brainstorming through a specific set of model cases: for instance, construction contracting (apparently an arbitration mainstay), or web design, or stuff like that, and then building a "product" around each of those cases so you can tune your marketing and built industry-specific social proof?

koeselitz• 14 years ago

This seems like it was put together with a lot of care and thought, so I don't want to be a downer, but - I have some serious philosophical issues with the way this service is currently being presented. Arbitration is not judgement; and an arbitrator is not a court, not even a small-claims court.

I mean: I think it's great that Judge.me is totally upfront about all the other details in their service, and they seem to be on the level as far as their legitimacy according to the New York Convention. What's more, this is really a very useful service - hiring a high-priced lawyer (international law is not a common specialty) for international arbitration over a small $1500 freelance gig seems silly and wasteful.

Still - though I have some faith in the value of this product, and I even feel as though it's relatively reliable and would likely work in most cases for its clients, I sense that there are some problems lurking behind the service simply because of how it represents itself. What I'm envisioning is a situation where the company finds itself a party to some legal action; my feeling is that, no matter where you are in the world, actual judges themselves have very little sympathy or goodwill toward companies that represent themselves as courts.

Again, sorry to be so negative about this; these are just my own feelings about it.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

I appreciate your feedback Koeselitz.

The "Small Claims Court on the Internet" marketing line is only used on the homepage, the actual information, arbitration clause, case filing and arbitration agreement make it very clear that we offer international ex aequo et bono arbitration.

The subtitle also clearly states "alternative to court".

anigbrowl2• 14 years ago

Oh hey, I didn't know you were on HN as well. I'm a bit more optimistic about how this will work, based on knowledge of existing commercial arbitration, but it's a reasonable question to ask.

phleet• 14 years ago

I don't know how well advised saying "No legal mumbo jumbo" then immediately using the latin phrase "ex aequo et bono" is.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

Ha, good point. Ex aequo et bono is the legal mumbo jumbo term to say no legal mumbo jumbo :)

tdoggette• 14 years ago

Yeah, but what does it mean?

law3• 14 years ago

My biggest problem with this is that "fairness" isn't objective and impartial, which is in contrast to the intent of U.S. law. Fairness is a function of one's life experiences, which may differ between arbitrators and subsequently shift the balance of equity between claimants. This issue compounds when multicultural parties are adversaries in arbitration. Plus, arbitration provisions are themselves subject to the selected forum's laws of contract construction. This means that a court could throw out the entire contract. Oh right, and then there's the issue of judgment enforcement: once your arbitration is decided, you'd still need a court to enforce the judgment.

tptacek15• 14 years ago

Courts generally enforce arbitration clauses even when they're consumer-facing and one-size-fits-all. You'd still have to go to court to enforce the claim if one party didn't pay it, but you probably wouldn't have to re-argue the case; the courts apparently just verify that any procedural agreements were upheld and then accept the arbitration decision.

From reading up on pitfalls of arbitration clauses, it seems the opposite problem is stickier: arbitration is by design not subject to legal appeal, and attempts to carve out rights of legal appeal in arbitration clauses have failed in court.

law3• 14 years ago

I'm referring to some problem that renders specific provisions of a contract unenforceable. In some jurisdictions, absent a severability clause, the entire contract could be thrown out, meaning that judge.me would no longer have consent of the parties to arbitrate the dispute.

But I agree: arbitration vs. litigation is typically an "either or" scenario; you don't get the best of both worlds.

mleonhard• 14 years ago

Do you perform arbitration "in accordance with the commercial arbitration rules of the American Arbitration Association"?

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

No, we offer ex aequo et bono arbitration based on the Lex Mercatoria, the merchant law that developer in the middle ages. Basically contract law as known in common law systems.

jack-r-abbit• 14 years ago

Interesting idea. Good luck to you and the business.

But why are so many [things] in the [How it works] page [wrapped] with [brackets]?

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

Because I still need to write the [content pages] for that.

devinmontgomery• 14 years ago

So, the site makes it easy to seek a binding decision against someone that's enforcable anywhere. If I'm the potential plaintiff that's great! But if I'm the potential defendant, I just say no to the request. I want it to be inconvenient to bring a binding decision. I at least make the P go through the pain of seeking out a physical arbitrator. In the status quo - no decision - I win.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

You are right. Agreeing to use an arbitration service such as judge.me is much easier pre-dispute (arbitration clause) than post-dispute (submission to arbitrate, i.e. just case filing and hoping the responder accepts the case).

dreamdu5t• 14 years ago

One step closer to anarcho-capitalism! Much love and respect Peter-Jan! This is an amazing service that many have been hoping for.

Ping me if you have UX needs.

grellas• 14 years ago

Fascinating concept that potentially can work: private arbitration is a matter of contract, there is nothing in law limiting the ability of parties to agree to be legally bound by a determination reached by a private party (i.e., arbitrator) with whom they contract to make such a decision, and the law provides well-established enforcement mechanisms by which arbitration awards can, if necessary, be taken to court and converted into judgments without too much fuss.

Judge.me also seems like it has taken a credible first cut at a form of execution that is at least workable. It has avoided the very thorny choice of law issues that can arise where the contracting parties are in different locations by essentially having the parties agree up front to be legally bound by what amounts to a free-floating form of law to be applied by the arbitrator regardless of what technical choice of law issues would normally prescribe. It has avoided the problems that can arise with discovery procedures in arbitration by limiting the whole arbitral process to a 1-day to 3-day exchange of evidence by email exclusively. It has also kept processing costs low by reserving for itself the right to choose and assign the arbitrator, by drawing its arbitrators from an established pool as contractors, and by dispensing with the need for witnesses, transcripts, rules of evidence, and all other technical aspects of judicial hearings (again, the parties agree up front to these limitations and that is why they can be legally bound by them even though they are highly unusual by court standards).

What all this means is that this is an innovative way to extend technology to dispute resolution but it will, of course, only appeal to those who can abide by the limitations. To me, this means that the system may lend itself well to small-dollar disputes but not to anything involving complex facts or larger claims. The absence of live testimony and the absence of discovery are particularly limiting in this context - if you can't find out too much about what the adverse party is going to claim and if you can't get your hands on evidence he holds to rebut it, you may be severely prejudiced. At some point not too far up the dollar scale, this likely becomes too risky (this would depend on the individual facts of a case). Beyond this, arbitration generally does not fit too well into non-monetary claims and judge.me would not be an exception to this. Still, for small-dollar cases, it would seem to be an interesting alternative to the small claims court systems in place throughout the U.S. and elsewhere.

The big challenge here will be to see how technology can be used to allow the service to overcome some of the limitations noted above while still keeping it streamlined and cost-effective. I am not sure this can be done but this is an interesting first step and there clearly would be a huge demand for cost-effective handling of claims at a higher level. It will be fascinating to see how this develops.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

Thank you for this great review, but could I please correct you on one point: Parties can submit evidence in attachment to their email testimony. If they feel a need for spoken testimony, they can upload a private YouTube video and include the link in their testimony as well.

Alex3917• 14 years ago

"the law provides well-established enforcement mechanisms by which arbitration awards can, if necessary, be taken to court and converted into judgments without too much fuss."

What I heard from another entrepreneur in this space (there are several competitors) is that small claims court is effectively not legally binding in most jurisdictions, because very few judges are going to issue a bench warrant or seize your house even if you blatantly don't pay the judgment against you. So even if there is a contract here, it doesn't seem like this would be any different unless there is enough money at stake that it's ultimately no longer under the small claims umbrella if the contract gets violated.

/Not a lawyer

ams61104• 14 years ago

If people on the losing side of a small claims decision are willing to ignore it, why would they be any more likely to abide by the result of a judge.me decision?

(edit: re-reading what you wrote, I think that is your point)

NoPiece• 14 years ago

If you win a small claims judgement, you have options to pursue collect yourself, like having a lien placed on their house, or having wages garnished. You're right in that it's not like the court will proactively help you collect, but there are tools at your disposal so that a judgement is valuable.

anigbrowl2• 14 years ago

You don't need to arrest someone or seize property. You can just put a lien on it, which is a recorded document that you are legally entitled to be paid first if the person sells their house property, or you can garnish the person's wages or bank account.

ams61104• 14 years ago

Also note that this is arbitration, which is one way a dispute might be settled. Another possibility is that a court will order a mediation, which is not quite the same thing. In a mediation, a neutral third party facilitates a negotiated settlement between the two parties, but has no power to dictate the outcome. In fact a mediation can conclude with no agreement, in which case the next step is a trial or judicial decision (or maybe an arbitration? I suppose it depends on how the contract is written).

clebio• 14 years ago

I clicked on this because there was a post on HN just the other day about _judg.me_ [1] and I assumed this was a follow-up. Interesting that this is entirely unrelated, but so close in the URL.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4012478

dctoedt4• 14 years ago

Item 3 of the FAQ [1] implies that there's not a separate arbitrator fee on top of the $299 filing fee, and the arbitration agreement [2] mentions nothing about an arbitrator fee.

So my question is: What qualified arbitrator would be willing to:

* review the documents submitted by the parties;

* conduct a hearing (via Skype or G+ Hangout?); and

* explain in writing the reasons for his/her award, as required by the "Timeline" section of the arbitration agreement [2];

all for an absolute maximum of US$299 per case?

[1] http://www.judge.me/online_arbitration#process

[2] http://www.judge.me/arbitration_agreement

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

1. Libertarian arbitrators who love the long term goals of judge.me and want to help.

2. Young CIArb arbitrators who have a hard time getting into the very small market of very lucrative multimillion dollar arbitration claims.

Edit: The arbitration hearing is email based. So the process is totally asynchronous, takes only about 2 hours (3 max) of the arbitrator's time.

larrys• 14 years ago

Agree. By comparison a single panelist UDRP for a domain name is $1500 ($1300 a little less at adrforum.com)

http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/guide/index.html#b3

femto• 14 years ago

Australia has recently enacted laws to limit the effect of unfair contracts on consumers [1]. It comes in to play in "take it or leave it" situations, where the consumer has no power to negotiate. How would judge.me's standard contract clause sit with this? Could a consumer argue that they have been unfairly forced to sign away their right to have their day in court?

[1] http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic.nsf/byHeadline/Unfair-contr...

rpm123• 14 years ago

I had just about given up on a slightly similar idea I had been working on briefly called http://www.TinyCourt.com. Much more downmarket than yours, using mechanical turk to provide verdicts on petty squabbles with family, friends, co-workers, etc., almost more as an entertainment product than actual arbitration. The enthusiasm for this idea in the comments makes me think I might have been about to give up too early.

amix• 14 years ago

Great to see somebody from Startup Chile! Congrats on the launch Peter :-)

latchkey• 14 years ago

While I find this business extremely fascinating, I find their Careers page even more interesting. http://www.judge.me/careers

Particularly: "Every 6 months, the entire team votes on hire / fire for each team member." - You've just been voted off the island!

delinka• 14 years ago

Maybe you could get a binding arbitration clause in your employment agreement. Though I don't know who you could suggest as arbiter...

chrsstrm2• 14 years ago

It's a good idea in theory, but I don't see it being realistic in many cases where your legally under-represented plaintiff would be able to win. First you have to get the other party into arbitration. At this point they have already breached their agreement, so even if it is a clause in a contract, who says they are going to participate? You would need considerable leverage to compel them to spend the $149 to end the dispute. And then assuming you do win, what compels them to honor the judgement? I did read the FAQs, but if I have to go to a court to effect a lien or seizure, why did I spend $149 on arbitration when I could have spent $50 to file in court in the first place?

tptacek15• 14 years ago

Because actually prevailing in court will cost more than $50, whereas prevailing in a legal claim for the award of a binding arbitration is very inexpensive; in reality, most bona fide disputants in arbitration can be expected to simply pay.

chrsstrm2• 14 years ago

The filing cost does vary between jurisdictions, but about $50 to file, another $20-30 depending on how you serve the defendant, and since there are no attorneys in small claims, that about covers it. the time spent in court could be considered a wash compared to the time spent collecting and sending evidence for arbitration. The point being, my expectation in the first place was that the client would honor the agreement, so expecting them to honor a judgement is a little hard for me to believe. Why take the roundabout path when I can go straight to court? I guess based on my own experience I don't feel this service covers the typical dispute worthy or arbitration/legal action. A civil end to a dispute can only be accomplished by two civil parties working it out.

dataisfun• 14 years ago

Modria is the leader in this space.

no_flags• 14 years ago

Who says the free market can't provide law and order!

tferris• 14 years ago

The point of getting a lawyer (1) and later going to court (2):

(1) At some point in a conflict it's not the technical expertise anymore which one may get with a lawyer—no, it's that there's is somebody who is not emotionally involved, who doesn't fear to loose, finally someone whose mind is at 100%, who is fully aware and who has no emotions like fear, hate and lack of self-control which could impair negotiations in court.

That's the main reason one should get a lawyer: those who are involved in a case cannot perform as good as the not involved lawyer. And latter is important because the court shall get a truthfully and entire picture in order to reach a fair verdict which is in your very best interest.

With Judge.me, it's strongly recommended to get a lawyer or another not involved third party who is in favor with me anyway and this person would just say, 'hey I don't know Judge.me, even worse I don't know the people there and I do not know their history of cases and how their decision making process is. I cannot prepare you carefully as I could do if we went to a normal court and thus, I cannot tell if you gonna win. So, I'd suggest to go to a normal court (2)"

drostie• 14 years ago

Before Survivor entered Reality Television into the collective unconscious, there was already a predecessor: Judge Judy. Judge Judy was precisely the sort of arbiter that judge.me aspires to be -- including the somewhat-misleading terminology about "courts" and "judges", even though the arbiter is not strictly bound by local laws but rather by the arbiter's whims -- also they probably excluded the $150 cost to bring the lawsuit, since they instead sold ads. Actually, if you told the reality TV folk about Judge Judy nowadays they would probably ask the audience to text in votes which would determine the ruling, and the "judge" would mostly be a mediator and host who would decide what evidence was "admissible" for the public's consumption or so.

Judge.me might in these respects be a difficult sell. If it is ideologically anarcho-capitalist, then that provides robustness against corruption: but it also means that your 'judges' might simply say "yes there is this nuance in your country's law, but I don't like it and it seems too complicated, so I'm just going to ignore it." There doesn't seem to be an appeals process if this happens. So the lawyers of large corporations might be very hesitant to turn over their contracts to something so seemingly whimsical. I don't know. I am not sure that this acts to further anarcho-capitalist idealism, but it will probably work for its purpose as long as that idealism exists in the first place.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

1. Yes I am an anarcho-capitalist and this is the reason I started the company.

2. Judge Judy is indeed arbitration, where parties waive their right for privacy in return for a free arbitration.

3. Ancapistan would fundamentally be a Kritarchy (rule of judges), so arbitrator reputation is crucial and case law can develop from that. Also, even "ex aequo et bono" arbitration simply means applying contract law in practice.

Iv4• 14 years ago

Ok. You won. I'm scared.

I have been wondering why there is not organization that makes it easy in 2012 to have a company that operates across several countries. I thought that simply creating a legal framework was taking some time but that finally legislators would manage to get there, they are just lagging behind.

But this... I don't want this. I don't want a private justice, I don't want "arbitration" to become the norm in the way conflicts are handled in the global village. No, this must not happen, this is the root of too many dystopian visions.

Arbitration : this artificial "court" decides arbitrarily who is right and once this is done, the initial dispute is still there. If the "loser" does not accept the arbitration, you still have to go to court. It solves nothing.

You know what is the next step ? A private police to enforce the decision of the arbitration court. You would sign in the initial agreement all the necessary authorizations for that. It would work. It would be legal. And even if illegal, an army of lawyers would delay several years the application of the real law.

I don't want that.

peterjancelis32• 14 years ago

Our arbitral awards are binding in 146 countries because they comply with the 1958 Convention of New York. For private commercial disputes, governments have given up their jurisdictional monopoly a long time ago and I disagree with you that this is a bad thing.

Iv4• 14 years ago

Ok. Say I have a client that does not want to pay me. I live in France, the client is in Japan. Contract signed under the Japanese law. Let's supposed we had chosen you for arbitration. I win the arbitration but the client refuses to comply. What happens ?

rmc• 14 years ago

I'm not sure about the logo. It's a set of tipped scales. On one hand I suppose you're showing how you'll weigh it up and measure the cases, but it can also imply your unbalanced and unfair from the start.

Judge.me - A Private Small Claims Internet Court

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