My law firm has always had the help of our interns over the years. Many of them were ably directed by my former partner, Andy Breines. The entire team always aimed at an overarching principle of harmonization of laws at the international level. We believed that conflicts of laws in a global society can be minimized by an active process of engaging people from other cultures to create harmonized rules of law on the international plane.

Our interns grasped this vision intuitively, and, really took it the heights!

Mostly law students from the local schools (we are certainly blessed with great law schools in my home state of Massachusetts), and from law schools across the US (several from Minnesota law schools) we also had foreign law interns from Europe and Latin America, high school and college students, and international majors from my alma mater, Johns Hopkins and BU.

Several BU Law and Suffolk Law students have worked for the past three years to help Susan Waters and me launch IBO. Both the present content on the IBO site and the associated IBO campaigns and projects are inspired collaborations that bear witness to the heart and soul of the possibilities of global culture of collaboration and trust.

This summer, my interns and I will be working both within the IBO virtual office space and face to face to transform IBO’s web presence. From our initial stage, a somewhat static use of very powerful open source technology (allowing for our learning curve), we will start using the power of delegating the publishing authority within our trusted community, to give other IBO members a chance to be its voice to the global legal community gathering in cyberspace.

When Ayo Kusamotu of Lagos took the job of leading IBO’s Africa Committee last year, he organized Africa’s lawyers to tell the world’s lawyers during Cyberweek that it is our collective responsibility to bring the promise of e-commerce to Africa and the rest of the developing world right away as the foundation for world peace. This challenge informs so much of what we envision our projects to accomplish; by seeking the justice norms of the internet community, we are helping to bring about a harmonized rule of law in cyberspace in collaboration with so many others engaged in related projects world-wide. IBO’s role is to get everyone to meet on the internet commons and work together there. Leave the silos of the computer and e-mail world, and use the tools that are available to us in cyberspace to build consensus. In trusted online communities, we can and will get us to consensus very rapidly on important issues for the global community. That is our belief and vision. And our proof of concept is to bring e-commerce across the digital divide as rapidly as possible!!

This vision is all a part and parcel of the spirit of students everywhere who intern, and especially to all of you who have come to Aresty International Law Offices to give a few weeks, months, and in a couple of cases, over years, to help us build a global culture of collaboration and trust. I am so fortunate to have such wonderful young friends!

In the spirit of building community, I invite every one of our interns to add to this post by introducing yourself and your work to the IBO community. All of you know that my singular role has been to bring the IBO idea to all of you over time, and, to actually get the community alive on the web. Well, here it is!!

So, thank you my AI friends, who are the heart and soul of IBO - please introduce yourselves to our virtual IBO community! (-;

Jeff

Alvin and Heidi Toffler, acclaimed futurists for over 30 years, have just written a new book which looks at the future of the creation of wealth in our society. At an early point in the book, they state that LAW is one of the major institutions that is holding society back from reaping the benefits of the many advances society affords. They mention that though law firms are adapting to using the technology, that the instituions that make and enforce law are far behind.

Having just attended and spoken at conferences on Online Dispute Resolution in Cairo, Atlanta and Toledo, I’m hopeful that law is catching up. There are many exciting technologies, pilot projects, and projects from all over the globe, that hint at the future of a global justice system. But it is also clear that online dispute resolution is still NOT the mainstream…