Stanford CIS

Colin Rule

Non-Residential Fellow

Colin Rule has worked at the intersection of technology and conflict resolution for the last two decades. He is CEO of Modria.com, an online dispute resolution service provider in Silicon Valley, and Co-Chair of the Advisory Board of the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution at UMass-Amherst. From 2003 to 2011 he served as eBay and PayPal's first director of Online Dispute Resolution, designing and implementing systems that now resolve more than 60 million disputes each year.

Mr. Rule is the author of Online Dispute Resolution for Business, published by Jossey-Bass in September 2002. He has presented and trained around the world for organizations including the U.S. Department of State, UNCITRAL, the International Chamber of Commerce, and the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution, as well as teaching at UMass-Amherst, Stanford, Southern Methodist University, and Hastings College of the Law. He has written and been interviewed extensively about the Internet since 1999, with columns and articles appearing in ACResolution, Consensus, Dispute Resolution Magazine, and Peace Review. He holds a master's degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in conflict resolution and technology, a B.A. in peace studies from Haverford College, and he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Eritrea from 1995-1997.

Recent articles

Blog

Law Grad, 32: Don’t Do What I Did

Martha Neil yesterday on the ABA Journal blog: "A 32-year-old Boston University law graduate is on a one-woman crusade to save others from making the same…

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Game theory and pre-emptive warfare

Peter Byrne in Silicon Valley Metro (from 2006): "During the Cold War, {Daniel} Ellsberg worked as a "game theorist" for the Rand Corporation and…

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Game theory and human destiny

I'm reading a fantastic book by Robert Wright called NonZero.  As the website for the book describes it: '"Ingeniously employing game theory—the l…

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I love it

Reason’s Jesse Walker on the fall of Mitt Romney: “I have to confess I’m enjoying Mike Huckabee’s victory, even though I disagree with virtually all of his plat…

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A new generation of leaders

Gary Hart on the Huffington Post this morning: "A year or so ago I wrote a book entitled The Courage of Our Convictions. It urged Democratic leaders to res…

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Generosity in the Genes

"Generosity May Be Genetically Programmed, Israeli Study Says" by Alisa Odenheimer:  "Philanthropists may be genetically programmed to donate to…

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Using email in couples counselling

Great new article from ADR pioneer David Hoffman on Mediate.com today.  From the conclusion: "Because email is such a new medium {...}the techniques for su…

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The second (un) civil war

Ron Brownstein has written a new book called "The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America." Here'…

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This is your brain on politics

A recent Op-Ed in the New York Times examined brain scans of individuals who were considering various political questions and candidates. The piece was written…