Just Court ADR

Here’s something I wrote for RSI’s e-newsletter this month that I thought would interest our blog readers as well:

Parties to court mediation in Florida have the opportunity to submit their complaints regarding a mediator to a robust grievance process. The structure includes four stages: committee review to determine whether a complaint is facially sufficient; a preliminary review of rules that may have been violated and the mediator’s response to the complaint, which are used to determine probable cause; a meeting between mediator and complainant; and a formal hearing.  In “Mediator Ethical Breaches: Implications for Public Policy” (Penn State Yearbook on Arbitration and Mediation, Vol. 6, p. 107 (2014)), Sharon Press examines this grievance process and finds that the burden of proof required at the formal hearing stage has the potential to undermine the policy goals of mediation programs. (more…)