Mediate.com Podcast 45: Implementing ODR in Family Courts with Jennifer Shack

In this episode, Colin Rule interviews Jennifer Shack, Director of Research at RSI, about the chapter she co-wrote with Donna Shestowsky in the new book Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice. Jen and Donna’s chapter is titled “Implementing ODR in Family Court: Insights from the First Neutral Program Evaluation in the United States” and it shares conclusions from the first neutral evaluation of a family court ODR implementation in the US.

This podcast is part of a continuing series interviewing authors from Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice.

About the book:

“Over the last 50 years family justice systems in the United States and elsewhere have evolved from a predominant adversarial approach focused on litigation to the significant integration of more collaborative, settlement-oriented approaches, especially mediation. In Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice some of the field’s leading practitioners, researchers, teachers, and policymakers provide an overview of the modern family dispute resolution processes designed to help separating and divorcing parents make decisions about the future of their families.

Chapters in this book address the growth of divorce mediation and other specialized processes including parenting coordination, arbitration, child-inclusive mediation, and online dispute resolution. They describe how to work with families experiencing issues including domestic violence, high conflict, substance misuse, and the lack of legal representation. Case management initiatives and special issues, including social science research and conflicting standards of practice, are also explored.

Family Dispute Resolution provides a wide-ranging look at contemporary family dispute resolution processes and is essential reading for everyone interested in learning more about working with separating and divorcing families, including professionals, and law and graduate students.

Buy it here: 

                       

Jennifer Shack

Jennifer Shack is Director of Research at Resolution Systems Institute (RSI), a Chicago-based nonprofit working to improve access to justice through court alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Jennifer, who has been with RSI since 1999, is one of the foremost court ADR researchers in the field. She focuses on conducting complex… MORE >

                       

Colin Rule

Since 2020, Colin Rule is CEO of ODR.com, Inc. and Resourceful Internet Solutions, Inc., home of Mediate.com, MediateUniversity.com, Arbitrate.com and CaseloadManager.com.  From 2017 to 2020, Colin was Vice President for Online Dispute Resolution at Tyler Technologies. Tyler acquired Modria.com, an ODR provider that Colin co-founded, in 2017.  Previously, from 2003… MORE >