Mediation Week 2013

This week has been proclaimed by Governor Scott as Mediation Week in The State of Florida. In his proclamation, the governor stated, “Court programs use mediation to effectively and efficiently resolve disputes.” For the past couple of decades, Florida has led the field of alternative dispute resolution which has grown in acceptance, especially as litigation becomes more costly and lengthy with electronic discovery. There is certainly wide recognition that the majority of cases are resolved outside of the traditional adversarial process. Litigants, their attorneys and the judges they appear before routinely embrace multiple paths to settling lawsuits out of court, including mediation. Many jurisdictions are celebrating this week in conjunction with the American Bar Association's Mediation Week. This ABA initiative is cognizant of efforts in institutionalizing mediation as one of several appropriate dispute resolution processes, and one particularly utilizing self-determination of the parties. The American Bar Association puts out a toolkit of useful ADR materials you can find here-- http://www.americanbar.org/groups/dispute_resolution/resources/mediation_week_toolkit.html