MEDIATION COMES OF AGE IN LOS ANGELES (PART 2)
Now that budget cuts have ended court-annexed mediation—just as they led to its birth nearly twenty years ago—what now? What does the landscape look like from here on? In some respects we’ve returned to 1994. Courtrooms have been closed, court staff laid off. All personal injury cases county-wide will be assigned to just two judges. Access to the courts for motions and other conferences is limited. Cases won’t come to trial for many years. There’s at least one new wrinkle: Trials may not be heard in the courthouse where the case was filed. This adds another level of risk...
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Within days, Los Angeles Superior Court will close its ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Department, a victim of drastic budget cuts. For the mediation community, this should be a welcome development. The court’s mediation program came about around 1994, a time when cases often didn’t get to trial for five years. It was a win-win-win-win proposition: Cases would be resolved early, so the court would reduce a crushing docket. Attorneys would have the certainty of a settlement, rather than risking trial. Clients, who must agree to any mediated settlement, would be satisfied. And...
Read MoreWatch Where You Sit
According to the people who study these sorts of things, the type of chair family members are seated on affects how they handle conflicts. This article is full of other simple ideas that can help all of us resolve our daily conflicts (e.g., who’ll pick up the kids) with less strife.
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