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Settlement Smarts for Self-Represented Litigants

Susan M. Yates, August 12th, 2014

Julie Macfarlane has written a useful guide for self-represented litigants participating in court-related settlement efforts, including settlement conferences with judges, mediations and direct negotiations with the other party’s lawyer. This could be a handy reference for court ADR programs to provide to parties.

The guide, “Settlement Smarts for Self-Represented Litigants: How to Use Settlement Processes Knowledgeably and Effectively,” is produced by the Canadian National Self-Represented Litigants Project. Thanks again to Richard Zorza’s great blog on access to justice issues for the heads up about this.

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Posted in Program Design, Program Management, Uncategorized | No Comments »

One-Day Divorce in San Diego Court

Susan M. Yates, July 1st, 2014

I love Richard Zorza’s Access to Justice Blog, especially when he covers programs like the one offered by San Diego, California courts to accomplish divorce in a single day. Zorza cites a New York Times piece to explain how the process works. The divorcing couple files for divorce and reaches agreement on everything: property, debts, child-related issues, etc. Then the couple goes to court and a court coordinator helps ensure they have all the necessary documents and they are completed correctly. With the paperwork in order, the couple can get their divorce the same day.

One of the things that makes this program unusual is that the court provides a coordinator who does not give legal advice, but who does help the divorcing couple ensure their documents are in order and help fill in any missing pieces if needed. (more…)

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Posted in Program Design, Program Management, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Resolution System Institute’s Evening of Firsts

Susan M. Yates, June 2nd, 2014
Susan Yates and Judge Morton Denlow listen to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan

Susan Yates and Judge Morton Denlow listen to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan

Last Wednesday was a great evening for RSI! We held our first-ever “friendraising” event and presented our first-ever RSI Appreciation Award. Our generous friends at the Chicago office of the Skadden Arps law firm kindly hosted a beautiful reception for about 60 people. This was our first reception designed to introduce RSI to new friends in the Chicago corporate and legal world. Attendees included lawyers from some of Chicago’s largest corporations and law firms, judges from the counties where RSI conducts foreclosure mediation programs, and RSI’s own Board and staff members, with a sprinkling of local neutrals, funders and others. The two highlights of the program were remarks by the Illinois Attorney General and the presentation of the RSI Appreciation Award. (more…)

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Posted in Foreclosure Mediation, People & Events, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Mediation “Theology”

Susan M. Yates, May 8th, 2014

A mediation colleague in Chicago, Bob Berliner, recently used the term “theology” to describe the various schools of thought regarding mediation, such as evaluative, facilitative and transformative. He was using the term somewhat tongue-in-cheek and as shorthand for the idea of belief systems that individual mediators hold, as well as the debates among those mediators.

It got me thinking. Is there some similarity between how we develop our religious beliefs and how we develop our mediation styles? I’m not suggesting that our religious beliefs are linked to our mediation styles, but rather that similar forces are at work in developing these two sets of belief systems.

The thing that really struck me about this way of looking at our beliefs in our mediator styles is that none of them is based on proof any more than religious beliefs are based on proof. (more…)

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Posted in Training, Skills & Techniques | 8 Comments »

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