Just Court ADR

Over the past year, I presented you with new research (and a little old research) that covered three broad areas: evaluations of ADR programs, evaluation of the efficacy of particular ADR processes, and research about particular aspects of ADR that can inform our practice.

Program Evaluations

Shamelessly, I promoted evaluations I completed in Washington, DC and Illinois. In Washington, DC, I found that early mandatory child protection mediation led to a much greater probability that parents would agree to stipulate to the facts of the case, thus precluding the need for a trial. Parents were also likely to be more compliant with services (such as parenting class or addiction therapy) and visitation requirements. Parents who participated left with a greater understanding of their responsibilities in the case and the points of view of the others at the table. Most also felt mediation was helpful to them.

In Illinois, we learned that program design was an important factor in how much impact a foreclosure mediation program had on homeowners facing foreclosure. Those programs in which the homeowners were given a date and time to arrive for their first pre-mediation session led to higher participation rates and to a higher proportion of homeowners facing foreclosure saving their homes. Across all programs, homeowners left their first pre-mediation session with a better understanding of the foreclosure process and felt they were treated with the dignity that the courts were wanting for them.

I also told you about the results of a study of Michigan’s civil case evaluation and mediation programs. It found that, with the exception of tort cases, cases using case evaluation and mediation were more likely to result in settlement than those that went through the traditional court process. Nonetheless, judges and attorneys who were surveyed were less enthusiastic about case evaluation than those surveyed in 2011 had been, indicating that they had less faith in the effectiveness of the process. This was not the case with mediation, for which their high opinion remained steady.

Research on Processes

In 2018, we learned that research on teen courts needs to be improved if we are to learn if it is effective. We also learned that parenting coordination shows promise for reducing post-decree court activity.

A round-up of 35 studies on teen courts that started as an attempt to understand what program characteristics were most effective ended as a plea for more uniformity in how teen court programs are studied. They found that not only do differences among programs make it difficult to understand program effectiveness, but that the methodology and definitions used in the studies themselves make it impossible to draw conclusions.

A review of 13 studies of parenting coordination found that the process shows promise for reducing post-decree court activity for divorce cases involving high-conflict families. The authors, however, noted that the studies suffered from small samples, limited generalizability and weak methodologies. They pointed to the need for better research and the development of an underlying theory of parenting coordination in order to not only better understand the effect of the process, but also to standardize its practice.

Research on Aspects of ADR

Recent research looked at prejudice and bias in mediation, and what influences litigants’ decisions regarding what dispute resolution process to use.

Prejudice and bias were the subject of a 2017 issue of SMU Law Review. Nancy Welsh lamented the lack of self-determination in mediation and looked at social science research to question whether mediation really provides procedural justice in a world of inequality, bias and prejudice. Gilat J. Bachar and Deborah R. Hensler took a slightly different tack in their article. They looked at empirical research on ADR and determined that this research indicates that both women and minority men fare worse in mediation than white men.

Donna Shestowsky continued her research into how litigants end up using a particular process to resolve their disputes. This time, she let us know that litigants are most likely to rely on their attorney when deciding on which process to use. This has important implications for lawyers and litigants, as lawyers don’t always understand their clients’ interests.

I’m looking forward to sharing more research with you in 2019. Happy Holidays, everyone!

When litigants were asked soon after their case was filed what would influence their decision about what dispute resolution method they would use for their case, they most commonly said they would be relying on their lawyer’s advice, according to research conducted by Donna Shestowsky. As Shestowsky notes in her article, “Inside the mind of the client: An analysis of litigants’ decision criteria for choosing procedures” (Conflict Resolution Quarterly, Fall 2018) [sub. req.], this has important implications for lawyers and litigants, as lawyers don’t always understand their clients’ interests.

This is the fourth in a series of articles presenting different aspects of her research into the decision-making of litigants in civil cases. Previous articles reported that litigants prefer mediation, looked at what they wanted from a dispute resolution process, and discussed their lack of awareness of what options were available to them. The research is based surveys of litigants in three jurisdictions (in California, Oregon and Utah), that had mediation and arbitration options available to the surveyed litigants.

For this aspect of the research, 335 litigants completed surveys soon after their case was filed. Among the questions were those inquiring into how they would decide which dispute resolution process to use. Within three weeks of the closing of the case, they were called to conduct a survey about the processes they used and the reasons they used them. The litigants provided numerous factors influencing their process selection at the outset of the case, with their lawyer’s advice being the most common, cited by 25% of the respondents. The second most common response, given by 19% of litigants, was that they wanted to minimize economic costs. These two reasons held steady when the litigants were surveyed after the case closed. That is, those litigants who said their lawyer’s advice and/or economic costs were what would lead them to choose a particular dispute resolution process said that they were the factors that led them to ultimately select a process.

Shestowsky finds the significance of litigants relying on their lawyer’s advice in previous research. Tara Relis had earlier found that lawyers don’t always understand their clients’ interests. Similarly, Russell Korobkin and Chris Guthrie uncovered differences between how lawyers and non-lawyers assess whether to settle or litigate a case. This, for Shestowsky, means that unless the lawyers uncover their interests before advising their clients, they may not be acting in a way that best suits their clients when promoting one dispute resolution process over another. Another study also proves relevant in this context. In Arizona, Roselle Wissler found that lawyers were more likely to recommend mediation to their clients if they themselves had experience with the process. Thus, lawyers may simply not feel comfortable recommending a process that may fit best with what their clients want.

Given that litigants rely on their lawyer’s advice, Shestowsky recommends that lawyers “should attempt to understand their clients’ interests, values, and objectives before sharing their personal evaluations of procedures to avoid imposing their own views.” And when their values differ from those of their clients, they should defer to their clients’ values.