Current situation of ADR in the Spanish legal system: the special case of mediation and its coexistence with artificial intelligence

Abstract

The so-called MASC / ADR or Adequate Dispute Resolution have received a legislative boost with the Organic Law 1/2025, of January 2, of efficiency measures in the public service of justice that places them, in most of the occasions, as a requirement of procedibility in the civil jurisdiction. This work is devoted to a critical study of each of these ADRs and, specifically, of mediation, as it is configured as the most complex ADR and in which the irruption of artificial intelligence may question many of its configuring principles and the mediator's status. Finally, the paper ends by addressing the most pressing challenges that artificial intelligence poses in this field, as well as the associated ethical dilemmas and our vision of the true innovative approach to ADR.