Promoting ADR on the Go

ADR Prof Blog by Andrea Schneider, Michael Moffitt, Sarah Cole,Art Hinshaw, Jill Gross and Cynthia Alkon.

As the Resource Center Director at RSI, I receive questions about Court ADR and do my best to help people through our extensive database. When the questions have general interest, I like to completely rewrite them and share them with our readers.

Dear Mary,

I travel to courts around the world promoting court-related mediation programs. I can communicate my belief in the power of ADR, but I’d like to back up my passion with some cold, hard facts about actual results from ADR programs across the country.

Sincerely,
World Traveler

Dear Traveler,

To condense weighty statistics about court ADR programs nationwide, RSI has created two documents that should meet your needs. First is our Bibliographic Summary, which condenses the key findings of more than 60 empirical studies of court mediation. The other is our state-by-state guide to foreclosure dispute models, which contains empirical data for dozens of foreclosure programs.

Many variables can demonstrate the value of court ADR. To get you started, here are a few diverse examples from the Bibliographic Summary:

Divorce cases, Virginia. Mediated parties retained higher satisfaction for twelve years after mediation and were more cooperative in making childrearing decisions.
Court-ordered arbitration, North Carolina. Satisfaction improved among litigants and attorneys in mediated cases. Mediated cases finished more rapidly and the number of civil trials decreased.
Worker’s compensation in Ohio appellate court. Mediation increased the settlement rate from 24% to 44%.
Juvenile court victim-offender mediation in Tennessee. Re-offense rate was 19.8% after mediation, 33.1% in non-mediated cases.
Good luck with your travels. Please let me know if there is any other information that may be helpful to you.

Best Wishes from the Resource Center

                       

Mary Novak

Mary Novak joined Resolution Systems Institute (RSI) in 2012 as Resource Center Director. In this role, she gathers, writes and publishes information on RSI’s key online resources: RSI’s Court ADR Resource Center; RSI’s Just Court ADR blog; and RSI’s monthly e-newsletter, Court ADR Connection. She also responds to inquiries concerning court ADR from… MORE >