Wanted: Guinea Pig Court

Posted in Wanted on Sunday January 31 2010 @ 9:19am

UC Davis law professor Donna Shestowsky is looking for a few good courts. She writes My research team at the University of California is preparing to conduct a major study, funded by the National Science Foundation, on how litigants choose between various court procedures (arbitration, mediation, and trial).

To that end, the team needs courts to study. They are just one court short of a sample (is that like being a few sandwiches short of a picnic?) and need your help. The criteria is:

• The court is a state trial court where general civil matters are heard (i.e., contract, torts, malpractice, etc.). (They do not want to study people filing in specialized courts such as family court, bankruptcy court, etc.) The county in which the court has jurisdiction should ideally have at least 100,000 residents.


• In this court, trial, court-sponsored mediation and court-sponsored arbitration must be offered for the very same type of case. For example, some courts offer arbitration for cases worth $50,000 or more, and mediation for smaller dollar values. Other courts, for example, send property cases to arbitration and all other cases to mediation. In both of these kinds of courts, parties are funneled to a particular form of ADR. For this study, researchers seek courts offering the same case/issue type and same amount in controversy the opportunity to go to mediation or arbitration.


• Parties actually have a choice between mediation and arbitration. Because the researchers are trying to study how litigants choose between procedures, if judges can require the party to do one or the other, that court would not meet the study's requirements. If the court calls the program mandatory, that also would not meet researchers' needs unless parties may choose between mediation or arbitration. If the court has an opt-out program whereby the court says they must use mediation or arbitration, but a party can veto the choice, the court would meet the criteria.


• Courts must actually offer both arbitration and mediation themselves. That is, either they have a staff of at least 5 arbitrators or mediators or the court maintains a roster of approved mediators/arbitrators. A court that simply recommends, advises, or encourages a process but does not also have the staff (or roster) to handle cases would not meet the researchers' criteria.


• Researchers need party names and contact information for both defendants and plaintiffs, as well as case type and amount in controversy filed in the previous 2-3 weeks of the start of the study for 3 consecutive months. The researchers can offer a small stipend from the grant to fund this type of data collection.


• Researchers need to know when a case closes within 2 weeks of the trial outcome, settlement/agreement, or dismissal.

Donna says the study is the very first large-scale study of its kind and we expect it will be often cited and widely read by lawyers, judges, academics and court personnel.

To participate please contact Donna at 530-754-5693 or e-mail dshest ucdavis.edu. The court must be chosen by the end of Februrary, 2010, so please no more contacts after that time.

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