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

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Rethinking the legal profession

Adam Cohen in the 4/1 NYT: "The economic downturn is hitting the legal world hard. American Lawyer is calling it “the fire this time” and warning that big…

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Free video interviews on Mediate.com

Very cool -- just learned that Mediate.com, the the premiere dispute resolution information portal, has opened its archive of video interviews for April.  They&…

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Forcing our brains to evolve

Matt Harding, NPR's Weekend Edition today: "I believe globalization is forcing our brains to evolve. I've had the privilege to see a lot more of t…

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Did you know?

Interesting/humbling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDLIwlzkgY Supposedly this is a year old (though I'd never seen it before) so the numbers are even bi…

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Conflict Resolution Governance

Daniel Schorr on NPR: "The president tends to seek conflict resolution rather than drama. He has been compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt, confronted with an…

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Get Your Kirk On

Thomas Vinciguerra in the NYT: "So what, beyond pushing buttons, do these men — as all Kirk chair owners appear to be — do with the most conspicuous piece…

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Never again

Mark Danner in the NY Review of Books: "We think time and elections will cleanse our fallen world but they will not. Since November, George W. Bush and his…

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Growth through loneliness

Peggy Orenstein the NYT Magazine: '...a study published in 2007 in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication suggested that hanging onto old friends vi…

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Building Bipartisan Habits

David Boren, senator from Oklahoma from 1979 to 1994, in the Post two days ago: "History demonstrates that bipartisanship is not an impractical, romantic n…

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The Reality of Guantanamo

Specialist Brandon Neely: "I have seen and done many horrible things, either at Guantánamo or in Iraq, and I know what it is like to try and move on with y…

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Pugnacious vulgarians

Thomas Frank in the WSJ: "The current recession, brought on at least in part by Wall Street's bonus lust, has claimed countless innocent victims. But i…