With the addition of the Special Arbitration Forum earlier this year, all of our programs are now housed in TRS. As you may know, AF has been working closely with members to migrate existing Online Filing (OLF) cases into TRS. With that process underway, AF is now closer to officially retiring OLF. 
 
So, how exactly did we get here? It all started when AF envisioned a more efficient way to file and respond in arbitration. Through technology and innovation, OLF was born. We launched OLF around January 2005, which is almost 20 years to the month that we are discontinuing it in favor of its robust replacement, TRS.
 
In the winter 2005 issue of AF News, the member newsletter and predecessor to the E-Bulletin, AF announced an exciting addition to our product line-up that would allow members to enter their applications and contentions directly on our website—Online Filing. By spring 2005, more than 400 filings per day were coming into OLF. AF continued to build functionality into OLF, and by the summer of that year, members could file responses in the platform as well. Members embraced OLF and its efficiencies over the paper process. By fall 2006, 80 percent of filings and 55 percent of responses were submitted online.
 
Online Filing paved the way for the paperless initiative—an initiative that not only streamlined how members conducted business with AF but also changed AF itself. In 2009, AF sent and received just under 57M pieces of paper. By 2015, 10 years after the launch of OLF, we had reduced that to 49K. It was a significant win for our members, AF, and our environment.
 
What began as a hybrid approach (rolling out Online Filing and retaining local, in-person hearings) has transitioned to the entirely online experience we have today—from filing and responding to hearing cases and publishing decisions.
 
Over these many years, our members have adapted to the incremental changes, working diligently to support the long-term vision of 100 percent online arbitration. As we close another milestone year at AF, we bid farewell to OLF and celebrate the full transition into TRS!