DALLAS COUNTY ADR OFFICE STILL GOING STRONG!

The Dallas County ADR Office and ADR Coordinator are alive and well even if you don't hear from the office as much as you used to. This is because mediation has become normal, accepted, and widespread and has created it's own counter movements. Alternative Dispute Resolution has for many years been equated with mediation. However, all is not what it seems, and what it seems is not all. There is a lot of change.

The first change at the court house is that there are other forms of ADR being used than just mediation. Arbitration with consumers and in the high tech areas are becoming increasingly popular and common. Arbitration is now spreading to small claims court cases.

Summary Jury Trials are becoming an ADR process of choice by some County Courts at Law and Civil District Court Judges and are being ordered more frequently and are now being requested by attorneys and their clients. A pilot project was successfully conducted and a survey taken of the courts and found that the non-binding SJT's are more successful than any of us would have thought.

Finally, the counter movement to mediation, called collaborative law, is growing in popularity and has a number of attorneys whose practice specializes in collaborative family law. Training is being offered all over the country for this process that provides an integrated program that helps families and children during and after the divorce.

The challenge we now have is "naming that process". More often than not, Alternative Dispute Resolution processes are being performed and instinctively being called mediation. With the increased caseloads for the courts, the Judges are looking to ADR providers that can and will "settle the case". However, this leads to added pressure for the ADR provider to "mediate" the case, with a settlement outcome as a goal.

Some of the skills and tactics used in "settling the case" are far beyond the bounds of what has been traditionally called mediation. Case evaluations and/or Settlement Conferences are more conducive to this type of case settlement than classical mediation. On the other hand, if the courts are looking for resolution of a conflict and reconciliation of the parties, they want what is often called facilitation and what many think of as transformative mediation. The post office and many family courts focus on transformative mediation as an important tool when long term relationships need to be preserved.

As I look at mediation in Dallas County, I can see that a few ADR Providers have become skilled in "settling the case". Some have success rates at over 95%. In addition, the provider list has swelled to the largest number of trained mediators Dallas has ever seen. As the ADR Provider list grows to well over 500, the question that many have is will it take becoming skilled in "settling the case" or being skilled in facilitation/transformative mediation to be appointed cases out of the courts? It is a good question, and one that differs for each Judge.

In addition to what is going on at the court house, non-lawyer, non-lawsuit related Dispute Resolution in Human Resources, Churches, and Corporations at professional levels are being performed. A large number of consultants with Big 6 Accounting Firms (the multi-disciplinary practices you hear about all the time) are being trained and are training hundreds of people in Dispute Resolution to serve business needs for dispute resolution services that never see the court house. Universities and Community Colleges are expanding into the field of Dispute Resolution, on campus and as a training ground.

As an aside, in order to know that ADR is working for the courts, it is very important that all ADR Providers report to the ADR Coordinator and the courts the disposition of the cases referred to them, whether it settled by mediation, arbitration, case evaluation or settlement conference. Dallas County and the State of Texas are leaders in the field of ADR, let's report it and keep it that way.

With this growth it may well now be the time to open up a dialogue on the future of the greater field of Dispute Resolution in Dallas and the State of Texas and to discuss things that go far beyond the "court-annexed mediation" that many people think of when they hear the term ADR.

In addition to what is going on at the court house, non-lawyer, non-lawsuit related Dispute Resolution in Human Resources, Churches, and Corporations at professional levels are being performed. A large number of consultants with Big 6 Accounting Firms (the multi-disciplinary practices you hear about all the time) are being trained and are training hundreds of people in Dispute Resolution to serve business needs for dispute resolution services that never see the court house. Universities and Community Colleges are expanding into the field of Dispute Resolution, on campus and as a training ground. With this growth it may well now be the time to open up a dialogue on the future of the greater field of Dispute Resolution in Dallas and the State of Texas and to discuss things that go far beyond the "court-annexed mediation" that many people think of when they hear the term ADR.

In conclusion, the Dallas County ADR Office is still here and progress is being made with educating the community and remaining actively involved in the future of Dispute Resolution. The office coordinates programs and is extremely active in giving presentations all over the country on our court annexed programs. If you have any questions on the programs being administered in the Alternative Dispute Resolution Office, please feel free to contact me at 214 653-6034 or email me at lagilbert@dallascounty.org.

Written by: Cris Gilbert, Dallas County ADR Coordinator.

Cris Gilbert holds a Master of Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine University School of Law and has been the ADR Coordinator for Dallas County for three years. She has presented on court-annexed mediation at the Master's Forum at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine University School of Law, Malibu, California; Jones School of Law, Montgomery Alabama and several local and statewide organizations. She will also be presenting in San Francisco and at the ABA-ADR Section conference in April, 2001. Cris is an Adjunct Lecturer for SMU-in-Legacy's Dispute Resolution Graduate Program. She is a nominee for the Board of Directors of the Texas Association of Court Administrators, a member of the National Association of Court Management, the State Bar of Texas ADR Section and SPIDR. Cris has implemented several ADR programs for the County and is the contract administrator for the Dispute Mediation Services, Inc. Cris welcomes you to visit the ADR Office and to donate ADR books to the ADR Library in her office for public use.

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