You Be The Judge, Recent California Real Property Journal Article Adds More Swill to the Controversy.
Okay, folks, there always has been a controversy on the added effectiveness (or expense) associated with ADR alternatives, primarily mediation and arbitration. We can report that even more gas has been added to the fire of this controversy based on an article by Victoria Paal, Randall Block, and Steven Roland in the most recent 2012 edition of the California Real Property Journal (published by the Real Property Law Section of the California State Bar).
After sifting through this article, it seems to suggest that court-sponsored mediations had a positive effect on litigant and attorney satisfaction with court services, reducing the time required for cases to reach disposition. However, there was a rub: not settling at mediation resulted in longer disposition times as compared to cases that did not go to mediation. (Hardly surprising, we would surmise.) Six California court counties reported that estimated litigant costs were from 16% to 60% lower for cases in a court-sponsored mediation program than for cases not within the program. Even the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) apparently had to admit that some benefits were achieved in an ADR process (be it in mediation or arbitration), estimating it saved more than $12 million in litigation expense by using ADR in 2011 alone (although we again surmise mediation was the big component of the ADR process).
Well, arbitration was another matter altogether, as surveyed in the article. For California alone, one study found that the average time to resolve an arbitration is 16.5 months, compared to state court dispositions of 64% within 12 months of filing and federal court dispositions of 9.5 months from filing to civil case disposition (longer if a trial was involved). Beyond that, the article concluded that arbitration can be expensive as far as filing fees, arbitrator fees, and hearing room expenses.
In an interesting footnote, the article authors cite a survey of 300 corporate counsel showing a marked preference for mediation over arbitration, especially on costs savings. Overall, 60% of the respondents favored mediation and 53% reported costs savings through mediation, contrasted to only 43% favoring arbitration and 41% finding some costs savings from the process while 44% reported no savings whatsoever through arbitration.
Let the controversy continue!
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