What is the Best Time to Mediate a Case?

We are conducting an empirical analysis of 578 cases mediated through the Cobb County Superior Court’s ADR Program in the 2006-2007 time frame to try to isolate variables that correlate the settlement and impasse.
One variable that has greatly interested us has been the whether the passage of time makes a case “ripe” or “stale” for [...]

Comparing Settlement Rates of Georgia Superior Court Mediation Programs

As part of our empirical research into mediation, we studied data collected by the Georgia Commission on Dispute Resolution which is a Georgia Supreme Agency created to oversee court-connected ADR programs.
To produce this graphic, we plotted the settlement rates of cases mediated in Georgia’s large Superior Court mediation programs. This includes programs where more [...]

Mediation Settlement Rate by Type of Court

As part of our research into mediation settlement, we studied data collected and compiled by the Georgia Commission on Dispute Resolution. The GCDR is a Georgia Supreme Court Agency that oversees court-connected ADR Programs in Georgia.
The graphic below shows the percentage of cases reaching any type of settlement (full or partial) in mediations administered by [...]

Correlation of Mediator Gender to Settlement Rate

Our data sample includes 578 mediation sessions conducted as part of Cobb County Superior Court’s mandatory ADR program in the 2006 – 2007 time period. Previous posts have described the data sample and court program in greater detail.
We identified the gender of the 122 individuals who mediated these cases in order to compare the [...]

Judicial Influence on Mediation Settlement Rates

This post shares another finding of our study of 578 cases that were mediated as part of the Cobb County Superior Court’s ADR program in the 2006 – 2007 time frame.
There are 10 active Cobb County Superior Court judges. Our data sample of mediated cases was sorted by the judge assigned to the case [...]

The “Natural” Settlement Rate and Court-Connected ADR

Because most lawsuits are settled out of court, many have wondered whether court-ordered ADR actually reduces the numbers of trials or simply resolves through mediation cases that would have settled anyway. In other words, the question is whether court-connected mediation programs improve over the “natural” settlement rate of litigated cases.
Our empirical analysis of mediated [...]

Some Types of Cases May Be Better Suited to Mediation than Others

This post follows up a previous post that shares some findings from our ongoing study of actual mediation sessions that were conducted in a Superior Court in Georgia during an approximately nine-month period in 2006-2007.
Georgia’s Superior Courts are courts of general jurisdiction. They hear all types of civil cases and wide variety [...]

Do Popular Mediators Have Higher Settlement Rates? Empirical Analysis of 578 Mediated Cases

We have begun to study alternative dispute resolution by looking at mediation sessions the way a scientist would look at experimental trials. We are hoping to identify factors that correlate to settlement as well as factors that correlate to impasse.
These findings are based on the reported outcomes of 578 mediation sessions conducted through the [...]