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81% Rate Fairness of Mediator Highly in Survey of RSI’s Eviction Mediation Program

Jasmine Henry, August 21st, 2023

Participants in RSI’s Kane County, Illinois, Eviction Mediation Program continue to have an overall positive experience, recent surveys suggest, though tenants responding to the survey tended to rate the fairness of their mediator more highly than they rated the fairness of the process itself.

RSI implemented the mediation program in 2021 to mitigate the eviction surge precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to ongoing grant funding from the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation, RSI continues to administer and monitor the program.

The Survey and Respondents

RSI’s most recent survey report examines responses from participants in the 264 eviction mediations held in Kane County from March 1–June 30, 2023. After every mediation, participants were invited via email or text to complete an online survey about their experience. In all, 62 participants responded to the survey — 31 tenants, four landlords and 27 attorneys. A full report on the survey findings is available here.

The survey sought participant opinions regarding fairness, trust and satisfaction. Participants were asked to respond to the questions using a seven-point scale, which we consolidated into three categories: low (1-2), medium (3-5), and high (6-7). In addition, participants were sometimes invited to add comments to their responses.

We asked participants: How fairly did the mediator treat you? Their responses were largely positive, with 81% of respondents rating the fairness of the mediator highly. To explore more of their perceptions about the mediator, we also asked: How much did you trust the mediator? Their responses to this question also were positive overall, with 79% of respondents rating their trust of the mediator highly.

Turning more broadly to participants’ experience of the mediation process as a whole, we asked: Overall, how fair was the mediation process? Most of the participants who responded felt that the mediation was fair overall, with 73% saying it was highly fair.

Tenants on Mediator, Process Fairness

Interestingly, however, tenants tended to give the mediator higher ratings for fairness than they gave the overall process. For example, only 60% of tenants found the overall process fair, while 78% of tenants felt the mediator treated their side fairly. There was a similar, albeit smaller, shift observed in attorneys’ ratings, with 85% rating the mediation process as fair, compared with 89% who felt the mediator treated them fairly. We did not observe a similar trend in landlords’ responses.

We asked tenants to explain their overall fairness ratings. Their comments may shed some light on why some tenants rated the fairness of the mediation process lower than they rated how fairly the mediator treated them. Tenants who rated overall fairness highly focused on the clarity mediators provided them, describing mediators as “helpful,” “nice,” and going “above and beyond in making sure that I understood [and] felt comfortable.” Several tenants also appreciated having a voice and feeling respected, with comments mentioning being able to “tell [their] story of how [they] got to where [they were]” and saying that mediators “made [them] feel like an actual person and not just some case number.” In contrast, tenants that gave medium and low ratings on overall fairness tended to focus their frustrated comments on landlords, rather than the mediator or the program; for example, some tenants who gave medium ratings on overall fairness still referred to the mediator as “gracious” and “fantastic” in their additional comments.

Landlord, Attorney Perspectives

All four landlords gave a high rating for process fairness. The two who explained their answers praised the rental assistance program that RSI regularly refers tenants to and acknowledged the benefit of an objective mediator’s “fresh perspective.”

Attorneys who rated the overall fairness highly described the benefits of having a facilitated dialogue so that both parties can speak their minds and consider their options. The few attorneys who rated the process as medium or low on fairness were frustrated with specific mediator actions; one comment stated that the mediator was “disrespectful to the plaintiff in many ways,” including because of their “lack of knowledge and deference to the defendant.”

Likelihood of Recommending Mediation

In order to further explore participant satisfaction, we asked participants: If a friend or colleague had a dispute like yours, how likely are you to recommend eviction mediation? Most of the participants who responded were likely to recommend mediation to a friend or colleague, with 70% saying they were highly likely to recommend it. One tenant commented that “It would be an absolute mistake no[t] going through mediation. It is the best decision when going through this type of process.” Only four tenants were unlikely to recommend mediation.

Attorneys who were highly satisfied with the mediation process commented on the benefit of, as one said, “a solution that both sides had some part in reaching.” Meanwhile, an attorney who was less satisfied with the mediation process cited “partial” mediators as a negative.

Conclusion

Overall, the survey responses indicate that the program continues to provide a positive experience to participants. Those who completed the survey generally had very positive perceptions of the mediators and the program, with most giving high ratings on fairness, trust and satisfaction. Some participants’ comments point to a possible topics for ongoing mediator education.

For more background on RSI’s 16th Judicial Circuit of Illinois Eviction Mediation Program, serving Kane County, read our evaluation of the first full year of the program, Addressing Eviction Holistically, published in late 2022, or RSI Director of Research Jennifer Shack’s blog summarizing its findings.

Jennifer Shack Talks about Inspirations, Dream Projects and the Future of ADR

Just Court ADR, July 19th, 2023

RSI Director of Research Jennifer Shack often uses this space to tell us about a new research project or share findings from her latest ADR program evaluation. Today, we asked her to take a step back and answer a few questions about what drives her work, as well as share her thoughts on a few “big questions” in our field.

What drew you to studying alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as a career?

When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin, West Africa, I observed how the village chiefs resolved conflicts through what I was to discover was mediation. I thought it would be great to have something similar here in the States – a way to resolve conflicts without court intervention and in a way in which both parties felt was fair. I was surprised to learn about mediation when I returned home, and excited when I saw an ad for a job opening that started with the words “Interested in mediation?” I applied, and 24 years later I’m still enjoying my work at RSI.

What is your favorite part of your work?

So much! I really enjoy designing evaluations and research projects. I love interviewing program participants and conducting focus groups because I get to learn on a much deeper level how mediation programs affect the participants – and because I get to meet so many interesting people. I also have a lot of fun digging into data to find out what story they tell about a program or an issue and then writing that story.

Do you have a long-term wish list in terms of aspects of court-based ADR that you’d like to study?

I have a lot of items on my wish list. I’ll just talk about my top three. As you know, Donna Shestowsky and I evaluated two text-based ODR programs. I have also evaluated programs that involved in-person and video mediation. I would love to delve further into how these three different processes affect participant experience, particularly in what and how they communicate with each other and the mediator, and whether agreement terms differ. The more we know about how these processes are experienced by parties, the better we can become at determining which method best fits with different case types and situations, and the more we can improve the participant experience.

I would also love to do longitudinal research on child protection mediation. Having conducted a couple of evaluations on child protection mediation programs and interviewed parents after they participated in mediation, I think this is one of the best uses of mediation. But I’d like to know more about its long-term impact on families.

My third item on my wish list is already starting to become true. For decades, I and so many others have wanted to look inside the black box of mediation and find out what works and what doesn’t. We’re starting to do this with the Mediator Trust Project, but that’s only the first step. There are many aspects that can be examined. For example, in family mediation we can examine mediation’s effect on co-parenting and family dynamics. Another possibility is researching whether there are certain things mediators do that increase the probability of impasse.

RSI’s research team has recently expanded to include two additional full-time employees. How has this affected your day-to-day work or RSI’s project work?

RSI’s Research and Evaluation team recently expanded to include Rachel Feinstein, left, and Jasmine Henry.

Having Rachel and Jasmine join us has been wonderful. It’s really helpful to be able to talk through ideas and issues with other research-minded colleagues. I also am happy to have Jas do research on an idea that I otherwise wouldn’t have time to explore. But most of all having Rachel take leadership on our OPEN Project has allowed me to focus on our Mediator Trust Project while Jasmine continues to monitor and report on the participant surveys from the eviction mediation program RSI administers.

What trends do you see in court-based ADR that you think are likely to persist?

I think remote dispute resolution is here to stay, whether it’s video mediation or text-based ODR. Video mediation will continue to be prevalent, and I’m seeing signs that text-based ODR is going to become much more common in the near future. Artificial intelligence (AI) will make inroads in dispute resolution, particularly in helping parties to negotiate and write agreements. AI may also one day mediate between parties as well.

Outside of technology, I believe courts will continue to implement ADR to address crises, as we have seen with foreclosure and eviction. My optimistic side leads me to think that more courts will treat such cases holistically, attempting to resolve not just the dispute but the problems that led to the dispute in the first place – for example, providing housing and financial counseling to parties at risk of homelessness.

What is your least favorite part of your work?

Probably not having the time or money to pursue all the projects I’d like to do.

What do you see as keys to making court-based ADR more accessible?

The main thing is to break down barriers to participation. This means making the ADR process easier to navigate and use. It also means communicating with parties using multiple methods and keeping in mind best practices for individuals with low literacy. Courts need to ensure that parties know about the existence of ADR options. Donna Shestowsky’s research on civil court ADR and our evaluations of court ODR programs have shown that too many parties don’t know that ADR programs exist. Courts should also educate parties about the benefits and risks of their options if they have them, so they can make informed decisions about those options.

Ten Tips for Evaluating Your ODR Program

Jennifer Shack, May 18th, 2023

After Donna Shestowsky and I completed two of the nation’s first neutral evaluations of state court online dispute resolution (ODR) programs, we had some thoughts to share with courts about how they could best ensure the evaluations of their ODR programs were useful and of high quality, so we wrote an article, “Ten Tips for Getting the Most Out of an Evaluation of Your ODR Program,” which was recently published in Court Review, the journal of the American Judges Association. The following is a summary of what we wrote. For more complete guidance, see the complete article.

Tip 1: Negotiate data access when contracting with an ODR provider
RSI Director of Research Jennifer Shack, second from left, and University of California Davis Professor Donna Shestowsky, second from right, are the authors of “Ten Tips for Getting the Most Out of an Evaluation of Your ODR Program.” They joined Nick White, Research & Evaluation Director of the Maryland Judiciary’s Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office, and Dr. Deborah Goldfarb, Assistant Professor at Florida International University, on a panel at the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution Spring Conference.

The best time to ensure you will have the data needed for a future evaluation, and to monitor program activity in general, is when you negotiate your contract with an ODR provider. As you screen providers, learn how each ensures data security and confidentiality. This is also the ideal time to negotiate data access for your evaluation. To keep your evaluation options open, you will want to secure terms that obligate the provider to share data not only with you, but with external evaluators you might hire later. And whether you hire a provider or develop an ODR platform in-house, be mindful of any data sharing or confidentiality rules or policies in your jurisdiction for the types of cases you plan to include in your evaluation.

Tip 2: Determine when to evaluate

Ideally, you would plan the evaluation of your ODR program as you design your program. But evaluation planning can happen at any time, as can the evaluation itself.

If you plan your evaluation before launching your program, you can increase the probability that the evaluation will accurately reflect your program’s use and effectiveness if you begin your evaluation after 1) the provider has addressed technology glitches that may emerge during early testing of your platform and 2) after you conduct outreach to ensure parties know about your program. If your program is already up and running, you should avoid scheduling an evaluation for a time frame when major changes are planned for your court or the ODR program itself. Significant changes while data are being collected may introduce noise into the data.

Tip 3: Find a neutral evaluator

Selecting a neutral evaluator is important for enhancing the quality, usefulness and credibility of your evaluation. In choosing your evaluator, consider whether they have experience evaluating court alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and/or ODR programs. If you hire someone who is not knowledgeable about ADR, be prepared to spend a lot of time explaining how ADR works, the theory behind it, and the specific issues involved.

Tip 4: Ensure that key personnel are involved in the evaluation planning process

Include court personnel who have knowledge that can assist with evaluation planning. These individuals are, at minimum, judges hearing the cases served by the ODR program and court staff who understand the processes involved and the underlying technology. They can help you determine the questions to answer, identify what data are needed, or work out how to access relevant existing data.

You will also want to decide who should serve as the point of contact for your evaluators. This person will answer the evaluator’s questions and help to obtain data. Staff members should be clear on their role in the evaluation.

Tip 5: Prepare to use data from a variety of sources

To best understand your ODR program, you should obtain information from multiple sources, such as your case management system, the ODR platform and participant surveys. To collect systematic feedback from parties (or other stakeholders, such as lawyers), your evaluator will need your help to facilitate distribution of surveys. They will work with you to determine which parties to survey and the best method for contacting the parties. They should also ask you to review the survey questions.

Tip 6: Expect to spend time with the evaluator

To conduct an effective evaluation, your evaluator will need to thoroughly understand your ODR program, how it fits with your overall process for handling cases, and how the platform interfaces with your case management system. Your evaluator will want to spend time with you to discuss your program processes and get answers to any questions throughout the evaluation process.

Tip 7: Facilitate the participation of court personnel and other program partners in the evaluation

Give court personnel and other program partners (e.g., mediators) who were not a part of the evaluation planning process a heads up about the evaluation and ask for their cooperation. Introduce your evaluator to relevant personnel and partners. These efforts should pave the way for your evaluator to reach out to them to get their perspectives on the ODR program and its impact on their work. When asking court personnel and program partners for their cooperation, reassure them that the evaluation’s objective is to improve the program, not to find fault with it or with them.

Tip 8: Help your evaluator to pilot test their survey materials

Before the evaluation period, your evaluator should obtain feedback on their surveys from individuals similar to those who will be surveyed for the evaluation—typically, parties to similar cases. Your evaluator will need your help to gain access to those individuals.

In addition, every court has unique terminology that should be reflected in how questions are worded. Your evaluator should work with your staff to ensure that the correct terminology is used so that it is more likely to be understood by those who will be asked to complete the survey.

Tip 9: Be flexible about the length of time set aside for data collection

The time allocated for data collection needs to be long enough to get the data necessary for analysis, but measured enough to provide timely results. Your evaluator will work with you during the evaluation planning phase to determine the time frame. But be prepared to be flexible. Your evaluator may recommend extending the data collection period if the level of program use and/or survey participation is lower than expected and they need more time to collect data to deliver a useful evaluation.

Tip 10: Survey those who use ODR as well as those who do not

Our evaluations have shown that the motto “If you build it, they will come” does not always apply to ODR. Surveying eligible parties who did not use ODR could help you identify issues that might be driving lower-than-expected usage. Surveys can point to marketing or party education problems, or in the case of voluntary ODR programs, uncover program attributes that parties find unattractive. You can ask parties whether they knew about your program, how and when they learned about it, and whether they knew they were eligible.

In the end, when a court invests resources to establish an ODR program, a major goal is to have it be used. It is imperative to commit resources to effectively market the program, which should include efforts to educate parties and ensure they know they are eligible or required to use it.

Conclusion

Courts that have their ODR programs objectively evaluated should be applauded for their efforts. Evaluations can facilitate program design that is data-driven and evidence-based, rather than guided by anecdotes or hunches. This grounding in data is especially important when making decisions geared toward satisfying the interests of litigants, since understanding their unique perspectives requires collecting data directly from them. Ideally, ODR evaluations will be conducted by neutral third parties who have no stake in the results and meet high research standards. Neutral evaluations are uniquely situated to offer an outside perspective on what works well about a program and to suggest how it might be improved. In addition, constituents, including lawyers, are more likely to accept the findings of a neutral, outside evaluation that concludes that a program delivers beneficial outcomes.

What Makes Parties Trust a Mediator? RSI Hopes to Find Out, With Help From Grant

Jennifer Shack, February 28th, 2023

For mediation to be successful, it is considered essential that the involved parties trust the mediator. Yet little research has been done to determine whether any particular mediator behaviors help to engender party trust. RSI intends to change that. With a generous grant from the Rackham Foundation, we are undertaking an exploration of the intersection between mediator behaviors and party trust. 

Two Potential Phases

During this exploration, we will observe mediations, code mediator behaviors, survey parties before and after mediation, interview mediators and collect outcome data. The purpose will be to test the mediator behavior codes, data collection instruments, research protocols and hypotheses to determine whether research of this type can provide useful information.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels
Support from the Rackham Foundation will allow RSI to examine the intersection between mediator behaviors and party trust.

If we find that our research is fruitful, RSI will undertake a full research project to determine which, if any, mediator behaviors impact party ratings of trust in the mediator and other procedural justice components, and whether mediation resulted in agreement, among other factors. Our ultimate goal is to provide mediators and trainers with concrete information about behaviors that are more likely to engender party trust in the mediator and result in a satisfying, successful mediation. This project will lay the foundation for work toward that goal.  

Seeking Site for Observation

We plan to observe a limited number of mediations at two sites with mediators with different training and backgrounds. We have identified one but are seeking another. If you are interested, please contact RSI Director of Research Jennifer Shack.

We are grateful to the Rackham Foundation and to Ava Abramowitz, who has championed this research, for this opportunity. She and her research partner Ken Webb have developed and tested the coding scheme we will be using. Stay tuned!

Holistic Approach to Eviction Mediation Proves Successful in Kane County, Illinois

Jennifer Shack, November 16th, 2022

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 for Dispute Resolution Foundation. The AAA-ICDR’s grant is enabling RSI to expand our outreach to court ADR colleagues working in the fast-evolving eviction field, and we are tremendously grateful to the Foundation for their support.

As readers may remember, the 16th Judicial Circuit in Kane County, Illinois, launched its eviction mediation program in May 2021, with RSI as the program administrator. The program approaches the resolution of eviction cases holistically, with referrals to financial counseling and legal services as well as mediation. Mediations are conducted primarily via Zoom, with some in-person mediation permitted. As part of the AAA-ICDR Foundation grant, RSI Research Associate Dee Williams and I evaluated the program’s performance during its first year. The evaluation included program use, services provided, mediation outcomes and participant experience. The evaluation revealed a program that is succeeding on all metrics.

We found that the program had a high rate of referral, with 578 (42%) of the 1,392 eligible tenants making contact with the program coordinator after being referred by the judge. Almost two-thirds of tenants who accessed the program were referred to housing counseling, rental assistance and legal assistance. Not all cases required mediation, and some cases scheduled for mediation did not take place; thus, 388 (28%) of eligible cases were mediated. Of these, 74% resulted in an agreement that avoided eviction, which translated into eviction being avoided through mediation in 20% of all cases filed.

Overall Positive Experiences

In post-mediation surveys, both landlords and tenants in general indicated they had a good experience in mediation: 61% said they were highly likely to recommend mediation to a friend. They also indicated they experienced procedural justice, with 73% indicating the mediator treated them extremely fairly and 80% indicating they were treated with very much respect. Their perception of whether they were able to talk about what was important to them was lower, however, with 54% rating this highly. Attorneys were more likely to rate their experience highly overall: 71% were highly likely to recommend mediation to a colleague.

The one area of concern is that 19% of parties who responded to the survey wrote comments indicating they believed the mediator was biased or not active enough in helping them resolve their dispute, which equaled the percentage who wrote positive comments about the mediators’ fairness and helpfulness. RSI is investigating this further, with the hopes of identifying whether certain mediators may need further training.

Access, Tech Use Examined

We also asked survey respondents how they accessed the video mediation, whether they needed to borrow a mobile phone or computer from someone, whether they had to leave their home to attend the mediation, and whether they had any technical difficulties. Approximately 6 in 10 tenants used a mobile phone to participate, and almost everyone else used a personal computer. Our sample is very likely biased, as those who have ready access to the internet would be more likely to respond to the survey; nevertheless, we found that only 2 of 49 respondents borrowed a device and three went to someone else’s home. Five attended from work. Ten of 56 respondents indicated there were technical issues during their mediation. These included problems connecting, bad connections, people getting disconnected and someone’s microphone not working.

Support Breeds Success

When I interviewed the judge and program staff for an implementation report on the program, I found the judge was very supportive of the program and that both he and program staff believed landlord and attorney buy-in was essential to the success of the program. The evaluation indicates that the judge’s support was instrumental to the program’s high rate of referral and that landlords and attorneys who completed surveys generally had favorable opinions of the program. These both support the general belief that both judicial support and party buy-in are necessary characteristics of successful programs.

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