Just Court ADR

This article is part of a series of perspectives on eviction mediation program development that is being supported by the American Arbitration Association-International Centre of Dispute Resolution Foundation. The AAA-ICDR’s grant is enabling RSI to expand our outreach to other court ADR colleagues working in the fast-evolving eviction field, and we are tremendously grateful to the Foundation for their support.

Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic profoundly impacted American society in ways that are still playing out. The fallout from a public health standpoint was tremendous and its consequences rippled into almost every aspect of society. Chief among the impacts was significant economic contraction, as  a staggering number of individuals suffered reduced or lost income as a consequence of layoffs, reduced hours, contracting the virus, or caring for loved ones who had.

Unable to afford their monthly rent, tens of millions of Americans have found themselves at risk of eviction. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and Centers for Disease Control instituted moratoriums on eviction, though each had some gaps. (The CDC moratorium has been vacated by a federal ruling. As of the writing of this blog post, that decision is being appealed and the moratorium remains in place for now).

Along with these federal protections, many states and localities enacted their own, generally more comprehensive, moratoriums. Approximately one-third of states still have an eviction moratorium on the books. However, for other jurisdictions, eviction proceedings not precluded by federal moratorium have resumed, and courts in jurisdictions where there are state or local moratoriums are expecting a significant surge of cases when those are lifted.

To address this uptick in cases, many courts are turning to mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution. Subscribers to our monthly newsletter, The Court ADR Connection, are no doubt aware of various programs that have arisen in recent months. We have been diligently trying to capture and report on these efforts in an attempt to provide our core audience of court ADR professionals with information about how others are navigating this unprecedented situation.

To that end, we are excited to announce our new eviction ADR resource sharing project. Thanks to the generous funding of the American Arbitration Association-International Centre for Dispute Resolution Foundation, RSI will be able to share resources, guidance and our expertise with a national audience. In the coming weeks and months, we will be rolling out a series of resources we hope will help inform and mobilize the field to more effectively serve disputants and hopefully assist landlords and tenants in avoiding eviction.

These resources include our Eviction Mediation Special Topic, which will share program development insights; house sample documents like court rules, surveys and mediation notices; and even include a living database in which we have been collecting data on known eviction ADR programs nationwide. We also will be publishing a monthly blog series on our experiences developing a new mediation program based in Kane County, Illinois and collaborating with others across the country on eviction ADR. Finally, we will also conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the Kane County program’s first year, and publish it on our site, alongside smaller reports about the program’s implementation and quarterly progress, to contribute to the existing body of knowledge regarding ADR’s efficacy in resolving these disputes.

The COVID-19 crisis was unexpected, but now many courts are expecting or already experiencing eviction crises. To help court ADR programs meet these challenges, RSI is providing a robust mix of expertise, data, analysis and research, as well as sample forms, rules, videos and websites.We are grateful to the AAA-ICDR Foundation for enabling us to do this work. 

To stay up to date with all these efforts, and the other work RSI is doing, please make sure you are subscribed to our newsletter. We also welcome our court ADR colleagues to reach out to us with information about your eviction ADR programs.