If you happened to be in downtown Brooklyn last week, you may have heard a huge sigh of relief coming from the Brooklyn Supreme Court building. In a court system with more than 54,000 pending civil cases, any attempt to streamline the judicial process and reduce the number of cases is welcome. With caseload reduction in mind, a new project was put in motion this week, requiring all civil cases to go through mediation before going to trial. According to an article in the Brooklyn Eagle, this innovative project is the first of its kind. Initially the program will only affect cases involving the MTA New York City Transit but, if successful, will hopefully expand to include a wide variety of civil cases, including real estate, employment law, personal injury, business law, entertainment law and so on.
New York labor and employment defense attorney Stephen D. Hans remarked, “The mandatory mediation program being tested in Brooklyn Supreme Court is an excellent idea. Any judicial efforts to increase the number of cases that can be settled amicably, while simultaneously decreasing the strain on our overburdened trial courts should be applauded.”
Mediation is one of the best conflict resolution processes in the American legal system. A form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), mediation occurs when an independent third party, or mediator, helps two or more parties involved in a dispute negotiate a settlement. Generally, both the time and expense to mediate are less than litigation. Mediated disputes are often resolved in days, rather than months or even years. One of the most important benefits of mediation is confidentiality; most mediated settlements are private, unlike court cases, which are tried in a public setting subject to media coverage and become part of the public record. Of course, if mediation does not work, the parties will have their day in court.
New York attorneys will certainly be keeping an eye on the Brooklyn Supreme Court’s notable pilot project.